Australian Producers Making Do Despite Bush Fires, Record Drought

Australian olive oil pro­duc­ers have faced unique chal­lenges this year, as one of the worst droughts in its his­tory and dev­as­tat­ing bush fires have rav­aged much of the coun­try.

Despite the chal­lenges, some big Australian olive oil pro­duc­ers are expe­ri­enc­ing qual­ity fruit growth and may come close to aver­age pro­duc­tion num­bers in terms of quan­tity.

A large bush fire spread through much of south­ern and east­ern Australia last year, with the worst of the dam­age com­ing in the last few months in New South Wales and Victoria, where many of the country’s olive groves are located. The fires, exac­er­bated by dry weather and high tem­per­a­tures, ruined thou­sands of homes and busi­nesses.

The olive grow­ers that have been most impacted are those in New South Wales and those who oper­ate small groves that do not have the ben­e­fit of irri­ga­tion.

“Our fruit vol­umes will def­i­nitely be down on last year,” Westerly Isbaih of Alto Olives, in New South Wales, said. ​“That is due to a com­bi­na­tion of it being a lean year for us any­way, but also the drought. What fruit we do have is not suf­fer­ing from any pest or dis­ease issues so we see no poten­tial qual­ity issues.”

Isbaih said the lack of mois­ture toward the end of 2019 and hot gale-force winds had a dam­ag­ing impact on flow­er­ing.

Alto was not directly affected by the fires, but smoke from the wide­spread blaze cov­ered much of the region. Fortunately for grow­ers, smoke is hav­ing lit­tle to impact of olive growth.

Isbaih said Alto will invest fur­ther in its drip irri­ga­tion sys­tem to coun­ter­act the ongo­ing drought.

Irrigation, said Boundary Bend busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ager Andrew Burgess, is crit­i­cal to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of Australian grow­ers.

“As the Boundary Bend groves are fully irri­gated, we have achieved some very good growth with very lit­tle dis­ease pres­sure,” Burgess said of Boundary Bend’s oper­a­tions in Victoria, which is south of New South Wales.

But irri­ga­tion comes at a price, Burgess said, as water resources are strained through­out the region in the ongo­ing drought.

“The con­se­quence of the drought is higher water prices which has and con­tin­ues to have a neg­a­tive finan­cial impact on all farm­ers and grow­ers who require irri­ga­tion water to grow their crop,” he said.

Burgess added that Boundary Bend is expect­ing ​“a rea­son­ably sized crop this year” thanks to its exten­sive irri­ga­tion sys­tem.

On the Mornington Peninsula in south­ern Victoria, Taralinga Estate has a large dam filled with bore water and rain­fall that has allowed the com­pany to con­tinue pro­duc­ing qual­ity olive oil, said Taralinga’s Karen Godfrey.

“Our 2019 har­vest was a lit­tle down on 2018 in terms of quan­tity, but has already proven itself in terms of qual­ity with two gold medals at the Australian Food Awards and best in show at the Golden Olive Awards,” she said.

Godfrey noted that ​“many olive grow­ers face ongo­ing uncer­tainty with regard to irri­ga­tion water” in the region.

Burgess added that the Australian Olive Association is cur­rently reach­ing out to small grow­ers near the epi­cen­ter of the bush fire to see what the dam­age has been.

Despite the chal­lenges posed by the drought, Isbaih said: ​“in many parts of Australia olives absolutely thrive which makes them a per­fect crop.”

Though low tem­per­a­tures in late win­ter and early spring some­times present obsta­cles for grow­ers, south­ern Australia is gen­er­ally more tem­per­ate and suit­able for olive growth than the trop­i­cal cli­mate in the country’s north.

And the Australian olive oil indus­try is grow­ing, as a result, said Godfrey.

“The Australian olive indus­try has grown sub­stan­tially over the last 15 years. Australia is the largest con­sumer of olive oil per capita out­side the Mediterranean so, in our opin­ion, the future of the indus­try here is look­ing very good indeed,” she said, adding that Taralinga is expect­ing its biggest year in terms of sales in 2020.

Boundary Bend has also expanded its oper­a­tions to California — though 65 per­cent of its olives are still grown in Australia under the Cobram Estate and Red Island labels.

The rel­a­tively high cost of labor in Australia and the fact that the indus­try is not sub­si­dized by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment can con­tribute to higher price tags on Australian olive oil, Isbaih said. He added that the qual­ity of olive oil made in the coun­try is help­ing to entice con­sumers world­wide to pick up bot­tles from Down Under.