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The lat­est esti­mates for the 2020/21 crop year in Italy show a 22-per­cent decrease in olive oil pro­duc­tion com­pared to last year, accord­ing to three major agri­cul­tural asso­ci­a­tions.

The farm­ers asso­ci­a­tion, Coldiretti, the Unaprol Consortium and the Institute for Food and Agriculture Market Services (Ismea) have warned that the effects of this summer’s extreme weather events have impacted the har­vest in all of the country’s main pro­duc­ing regions.

Italian pro­duc­ers are expected to yield 287,000 tons of olive oil this year. In 2019, the yield reached 366,000 tons.

These fig­ures are well below the aver­age num­bers recorded until 2014 and seem to con­firm a trend of pro­gres­sively declin­ing pro­duc­tion.

The heat and pro­longed drought in many regions have con­tributed to most pro­duc­ers plan­ning an early har­vest.

Coldiretti pub­lished its mar­ket data as the first olive har­vest took place at the Frantoio Cutrera mill, near Ragusa, Sicily.

The asso­ci­a­tion warned that the final results of the 2020 har­vest may be even lower than ini­tial esti­mates since rough weather is now hit­ting many Italian regions with sud­den tem­per­a­ture drops and strong winds.

Still, some stake­hold­ers remain opti­mistic about the har­vest.

“The olive oil sec­tor has shown resilience to the health cri­sis,” Raffaele Borriello, head of Ismea, said. ​“In the first six months of 2020, bot­tled olive oil has shown a growth in exports, with a 28-per­cent increase to the United States and 42-per­cent increase to France.”

“The esti­mates for the cur­rent sea­son show a slow­ing pro­duc­tion which will be char­ac­ter­ized by a high prod­uct qual­ity level,” Borriello added. ​“Diminished avail­abil­ity of the national prod­uct and the reduced stor­age esti­mates in the European Union could fuel a rise in price at ori­gin, heav­ily hit in the last sea­son.”

According to Coldiretti, the price at ori­gin of olive oil has fallen by 44 per­cent in Italy, with val­ues that ​“have not been seen since 2014.”

“A trend, caused by the avail­abil­ity on the inter­na­tional mar­kets of old Spanish olive oil that often ends up being sold as Italian olive oil,” Coldiretti said.

“The choice of many farm­ers to pro­ceed with an early har­vest in 2020 because of the cli­mate con­di­tions means pri­or­ity must be given to the qual­ity of the prod­uct, not to its quan­tity, and pre­fer the prof­itabil­ity per hectare to the yield per quin­tal,” David Granieri, the pres­i­dent of the Unaprol, added.

• Coldiretti
• Unaprol