Jordan Braces for Disappointing Harvest Amid Low Oil Yields

Summary

Lower-than-expected olive milling yields in Jordan are affect­ing olive oil pro­duc­tion vol­umes, with the Ministry of Agriculture esti­mat­ing that around 143,000 tons of olives will be used to pro­duce 26,000 met­ric tons of olive oil this sea­son. Despite chal­lenges such as low con­ver­sion yields due to cli­mate change, some areas like Jerash gov­er­norate have seen good yields, although author­i­ties are warn­ing con­sumers about coun­ter­feit olive oil and encour­ag­ing farm­ers to delay har­vest to improve oil qual­ity.

Lower-than-expected olive milling yields are affect­ing olive oil pro­duc­tion vol­umes in Jordan.

According to the lat­est esti­mates by the Ministry of Agriculture, around 143,000 tons of olives har­vested in the coun­try will be used to pro­duce olive oil this sea­son.

Ayman Al-Oran, the min­istry’s assis­tant sec­re­tary-gen­eral of plant resources, said olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to sur­pass 26,000 met­ric tons, align­ing with the five-year aver­age of 27,000 tons.

These pro­jec­tions revise the more opti­mistic esti­mates recently sug­gested by Minister of Agriculture Khaled Al-Hanifat, who indi­cated that pro­duc­tion could reach 30,000 tons in the 2024/25 crop year.

However, farm­ers in cer­tain regions report low con­ver­sion yields, mean­ing the quan­tity of olive oil extracted from the fruit is falling short of expec­ta­tions.

Mahmoud Al-Auran, the direc­tor of the Jordanian Farmers Union, attrib­uted part of this issue to cli­mate change. Average tem­per­a­tures have con­sis­tently been above nor­mal, affect­ing oil accu­mu­la­tion.

Despite these chal­lenges, not all areas of Jordan were impacted.

“Yield and qual­ity are both good this year,” said Amelia Bilbeisi, co-founder of the award-win­ning olive oil pro­ducer Al-Maida.

Most grow­ers in Jordan did not face the extreme weather events that hit other parts of the Mediterranean basin.

“The weather went as expected,” Bilbeisi said. ​“Preparations were on track for har­vest­ing,” she added.

The pres­ence of the olive fruit fly was also less sig­nif­i­cant com­pared to other sea­sons.

“In some areas of Jordan, we saw farms affected by dis­ease dur­ing the sea­son, but we were not impacted,” Bilbeisi said.

In Jerash gov­er­norate, one of the country’s key olive oil-pro­duc­ing regions, mills have been oper­at­ing at total capac­ity for sev­eral weeks.

Fayez Al-Khalayleh, the direc­tor of agri­cul­ture in Jerash, noted that ​“some farm­ers started har­vest­ing early, while oth­ers waited for more rain.”

Authorities have encour­aged farm­ers to delay their har­vest to improve oil yields.

However, they have also issued warn­ings to con­sumers about coun­ter­feit olive oil.

Given the high prices of gen­uine olive oil, fraud­u­lent prod­ucts may be sold, which may con­tain lit­tle or no actual olive oil and could include harm­ful sub­stances.

Authorities believe that much of this coun­ter­feit­ing tar­gets con­sumers who lack suf­fi­cient knowl­edge about the prod­uct.

Mahmoud Al-Omari, spokesper­son for the Association of Olive Oil Millers and Producers, indi­cated that a ten per­cent increase in over­all olive pro­duc­tion com­pared to last sea­son is still antic­i­pated.

Nevertheless, the asso­ci­a­tion cau­tioned that delay­ing the har­vest could neg­a­tively impact the qual­ity of the oil.

Bilbeisi also noted some pres­sure on high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers like Al-Maida. ​“Having won pre­vi­ously in the NYIOOC does add pres­sure on us as pro­duc­ers, but I believe it’s pos­i­tive. Quality is always our pri­or­ity, guid­ing us toward achiev­ing con­sis­tency,” she said.

The olive har­vest in most regions of Jordan is expected to con­clude within the first two to three weeks of December.

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