Despite Costs, Italian Olive Farmers Continue Organic Transition

Summary

Italy has seen a sig­nif­i­cant increase in the area of olive groves cul­ti­vated using organic farm­ing prac­tices, now cov­er­ing nearly 280,000 hectares. The demand for organic olive oil is ris­ing both domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally, with pro­duc­ers fac­ing chal­lenges such as high pro­duc­tion costs and the need for organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to meet mar­ket demands. Despite the costs and bureau­cratic hur­dles, organic olive oil pro­duc­ers in Italy are find­ing suc­cess by tar­get­ing for­eign mar­kets and offer­ing unique, high-qual­ity prod­ucts.

Nearly 280,000 hectares of olive groves in Italy are now cul­ti­vated using organic farm­ing prac­tices, com­pared to approx­i­mately 170,000 hectares a decade ago.

According to 2023 data com­piled by the Italian Institute of Services for the Agricultural Food Market (ISMEA), organic olive groves rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of Italy’s organic farm­ing area.

They are com­pa­ra­ble to mead­ows and pas­tures (729,000 hectares), ani­mal for­age crops (481,000 hectares), and cere­als (356,000 hectares), far exceed­ing organic vine­yards (133,000 hectares).

Approximately 20 per­cent of Italy’s agri­cul­tural land is organ­i­cally farmed, cov­er­ing more than 2.4 mil­lion hectares.

The demand for organic olive oil is increas­ing in Italy and inter­na­tion­ally. Many Italian organic extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers find their most loyal cus­tomers abroad.

“I sell my extra vir­gin olive oil at €16 per liter, and it all comes from organ­i­cally cer­ti­fied agri­cul­ture,” Giuseppe Mazzone, the owner of the Sicilian pro­ducer Pozzo di Gaspare, told Olive Oil Times.

“I used to sell my extra vir­gin olive oil locally, but Sicilian con­sumers are often reluc­tant to pay higher prices for pre­mium qual­ity,” he added. ​“Many still seek €8 olive oils. As a result, I shifted to for­eign mar­kets, which now account for more than 50 per­cent of my total sales.”

In local mar­kets, organic and high-qual­ity con­ven­tional extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers are often side­lined by large retail­ers’ aggres­sive pric­ing strate­gies.

Many of these gen­eral food out­lets use extra vir­gin olive oil as a loss leader, sell­ing it at below-mar­ket prices to attract more cus­tomers.

“While we have a min­i­mum price of €9 per liter, I have seen super­mar­kets sell­ing extra vir­gin olive oil for as lit­tle as €4 or €5,” Mazzone noted.

In the United States, organic olive oil sales are ris­ing, while con­ven­tional prod­uct sales appear to be stag­nat­ing.

Globally, many high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­ers are tran­si­tion­ing to organic farm­ing, either par­tially or entirely.

At the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, nearly one-third of all entries were organic, a fig­ure that con­tin­ues to grow each year.

In Italy, cer­ti­fied organic extra vir­gin olive oil con­sis­tently com­mands a higher price than con­ven­tional olive oil. In Bari, Puglia’s key olive oil mar­ket, organic extra vir­gin olive oil typ­i­cally costs five to six per­cent more than its con­ven­tional coun­ter­part.

“Converting nearly half of our pro­duc­tion to organic olive farm­ing had a def­i­nite com­mer­cial impact. One key fac­tor is that pro­duc­ing organic olive oil is costly,” said Pietro Re, the chief exec­u­tive of the award-win­ning Tamía.

While pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil is also inher­ently expen­sive, he added that there are sev­eral notable dif­fer­ences.

“To illus­trate, con­sider pest man­age­ment. Organic meth­ods are not always suf­fi­cient to ensure flaw­less fruit at har­vest time,” Re said. ​“High-qual­ity olive oil starts with healthy, unblem­ished fruit. It’s impos­si­ble to pro­duce a pre­mium prod­uct from olives that are already com­pro­mised.”

As a result, organic pro­duc­ers often opt for an early har­vest, some­times excep­tion­ally early in the sea­son.

This helps pre­vent infes­ta­tions by the olive fruit fly, which can severely dam­age the crop. However, this prac­tice sig­nif­i­cantly reduces yields dur­ing milling.

“With con­ven­tional farm­ing tech­niques and our exper­tise, we can allow the olives to reach the next ripen­ing stage,” Re said.

“This isn’t the stage of an unripe, green olive but rather when the fruit reaches opti­mal col­oration,” he added. ​“At that point, the olives develop the ideal fla­vor and aroma while yield­ing a higher oil out­put. The spe­cific tim­ing varies by olive vari­ety.”

The total area of Italian farm­land ded­i­cated to olive cul­ti­va­tion has remained sta­ble for years at approx­i­mately one mil­lion hectares.

Most newly cer­ti­fied organic olive groves result from con­vert­ing con­ven­tional farms to organic meth­ods.

This tran­si­tion fol­lows strin­gent reg­u­la­tions set by the European Union and local author­i­ties.

Certification must be renewed annu­ally, and the con­ver­sion process requires a con­tin­u­ous three-year period of strictly fol­low­ing organic farm­ing prac­tices.

Only after this period ends and all cri­te­ria are met, includ­ing ded­i­cated stor­age con­tain­ers, can cer­ti­fi­ca­tion be offi­cially granted by enti­ties autho­rized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests.

Regular and thor­ough inspec­tions are con­ducted. ​“Today, there are more fre­quent and in-depth checks on pro­duc­tion than in the past,” Re said.

These inspec­tions may include ver­i­fy­ing com­pany records and sam­pling leaves, soil and olive oil on-site. Authorities also mon­i­tor pro­duc­tion vol­umes.

The organic labels on saleable con­tain­ers must also receive spe­cific approval from min­istry del­e­gates before bot­tling.

“Obtaining and main­tain­ing organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for olive farm­ing is not as sim­ple as one might think. It’s quite a com­plex process,” Mazzone said.

Pozzo di Gaspare is one of the farms that pur­sued organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its trees. Work is also being done to cer­tify the result­ing olive oil pro­duc­tion as organic.

“When the cer­ti­fier comes here, the pro­ce­dure requires at least a whole morn­ing and the involve­ment of our agron­o­mist, Mazzone said. The process also involves fill­ing out ques­tion­naires and sur­veys and answer­ing other ques­tions.

“Then you need to get an Agricultural Assistance Center involved, because this appli­ca­tion fol­lows a spe­cific process, as organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is also included in the company’s offi­cial records,” he added. ​“The bureau­cratic part is a bit of a has­sle, but with the right sup­port and qual­i­fied peo­ple, it can be done.”

Every year, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion comes with its costs.

“Just the other day, I sent a copy of the con­tract for the cur­rent year, for 2025, and it is around €600. Plus, of course, the agron­o­mist also charges a fee,” Mazzone remarked. ​“In the end, I think the organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tions costs me around €700 to €800 per year.”

Despite the European Union pro­vid­ing sup­port dur­ing the con­ver­sion period, organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion costs add to other pro­duc­tion costs and affect the price. Lower yields are typ­i­cal dur­ing this phase as invest­ments are made to meet offi­cial cri­te­ria.

“From plant­ing new olive trees to obtain­ing organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for our orchards and mak­ing qual­ity-dri­ven invest­ments, none of this would have been pos­si­ble with­out the European Union,” Mazzone remarked.

Local insti­tu­tions sup­port these efforts through spe­cific grants avail­able to farm­ers, offer­ing between €500 and €800 per hectare, depend­ing on the region.

“Italians don’t appre­ci­ate this organic cer­tifi­cate, because as soon as you slightly increase the pro­duc­t’s price, peo­ple react neg­a­tively. They don’t real­ize what’s behind it, the amount of work involved,” Mazzone lamented.

However, the Sicilian pro­ducer sees oleo­tourism as a poten­tial game-changer for high-qual­ity organic olive oil grow­ers.

“When cus­tomers see our trees, how we care for them and the bio­di­ver­sity, they are eager to try our olive oils. Most of those vis­its, where tast­ings edu­cate peo­ple to under­stand qual­ity, con­vey good sales,” Mazzone said.

Re added that organic olive pro­duc­tion could offer a unique expe­ri­ence for con­nois­seurs.

“We are now export­ing in the United States an organic olive oil that comes from the most ancient olive tree vari­ety of our region: Bolzone,” he said. ​“All those trees were replaced by the Canino vari­ety at the begin­ning of the 19^th cen­tury. The rea­son is that Bolzone is prone to attack by pathogens.”

“But we suc­cess­fully cul­ti­vated it using organic meth­ods, and now we have a beau­ti­ful, unique monocul­ti­var from a truly spe­cial region,” Re con­cluded.