Labor Shortage Cripples Spanish Olive Harvest

Sector offi­cials have said that fif­teen per­cent of the fruit des­tined for table olive pro­duc­tion remains unhar­vested in Spain due to a lack of work­ers, with the table olive cam­paign approach­ing its con­clu­sion.

Most of these unpicked olives are in the Andalusian province of Seville and pre­dom­i­nantly cor­re­spond to the Manzanilla and Gordal vari­eties.

Due to higher lev­els of mech­a­niza­tion, Hojiblanca table olives have mostly been har­vested, but an esti­mated five per­cent of these olives were left unpicked due to a lack of work­ers.

“Labor is the main chal­lenge fac­ing the agri­cul­tural sec­tor, espe­cially for table olives,” Gabriel Cabello, pres­i­dent of table olives at Cooperativas Agro-ali­men­ta­rias, told local radio sta­tion Andalucía Capital.

Other offi­cials from large coop­er­a­tives con­firmed to Olive Oil Times that find­ing enough work­ers for the har­vest is becom­ing increas­ingly chal­leng­ing, with many young Spaniards leav­ing rural areas for larger urban cen­ters.

Economic migrants from North Africa have increas­ingly filled the gap, but offi­cials said they often leave for dif­fer­ent employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties after the har­vest.

This cre­ates an annual turnover that adds to the eco­nomic bur­den of table olive pro­duc­ers who do not ben­e­fit from the increased effi­ciency of an expe­ri­enced work­force and must spend time instruct­ing new work­ers.

While a grow­ing body of research in California has demon­strated the effi­ciency of mechan­i­cal table olive har­vesters, Manzanilla and Gordal vari­eties can­not be effec­tively mech­a­nized with­out bruis­ing the fruit and harm­ing qual­ity.

Despite the peren­nial chal­lenges cre­ated by labor short­ages, Spanish pro­duc­ers have har­vested 480,000 met­ric tons of table olives this year, of which 96 per­cent has come from Andalusia.

“The results of the cam­paign have been sat­is­fac­tory,” Cabello said, ​“much bet­ter than the pre­dic­tions made at the begin­ning of the har­vest.”

He added that table olive pro­duc­tion could reach 550,000 tons, exceed­ing the pre­dic­tion of 492,250 tons made in September and far sur­pass­ing 2023’s total of 408,790 tons.

Spain is the world’s third-largest table olive pro­ducer after Egypt and Turkey, with 197,335 hectares of olive groves ded­i­cated to table olive pro­duc­tion – four per­cent of the country’s total olive groves – and another 77,650 hectares planted with dual-use vari­eties.

Cabello acknowl­edged that both coun­tries have become increas­ingly com­pet­i­tive in the global table olive mar­ket with rapidly increas­ing pro­duc­tion and lower har­vest­ing costs than Spain.

While plen­ti­ful rain­fall across the Iberian penin­sula has allowed the table olive har­vest to rebound, Cooperativas Agroalimentarias cited the threat of addi­tional tar­iffs from the incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion of United States President-elect Donald J. Trump as another head­wind fac­ing the sec­tor.

According to Antonio de Mora, sec­re­tary gen­eral of the Association of Table Olive Exporters (Asemesa), the 35 per­cent tar­iffs imposed on Spanish black table olives in 2017 by the pre­vi­ous Trump admin­is­tra­tion have already led to €260 mil­lion in losses.

De Mora added that the tar­iffs per­ma­nently recon­fig­ured the mar­ket, with Spanish pro­duc­ers los­ing 70 per­cent of their U.S. mar­ket share and exporters from Egypt, Turkey and Morocco com­ing in to fill the void.

Trump, who will not take office until the end of January, has already announced plans to impose tar­iffs on Canada, China and Mexico. During the cam­paign, he said he planned to impose tar­iffs of between 10 and 20 per­cent on all imported goods.

Cabellos warned that Spanish green table olive exports may also fall into the crosshairs of a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

“We are accus­tomed to the tar­iffs,” he said. ​“All signs point to Donald Trump con­tin­u­ing to use pro­tec­tion­ist poli­cies in the United States.”

“Let’s remem­ber that green table olives and olive oil faced a tar­iff stem­ming from the con­flict between Airbus and Boeing,” Cabellos added. ​“These tar­iffs were sus­pended for five years, but with the arrival of Trump, we do not know what could hap­pen.”

• El Mundo
• Andalucía Capital