Revolution in Extremadura’s Olive Sector Increases Its Economic Importance

National and global dis­tinc­tions to the qual­ity of its olive oils, changes in their pack­ag­ing and image, new approaches to olive cul­ti­va­tion and pro­cess­ing, and a greater prod­uct pres­ence in inter­na­tional mar­kets are some ingre­di­ents of the trans­for­ma­tion of Extremadura’s olive sec­tor, a change that is help­ing olive oil become a more rel­e­vant prod­uct in the econ­omy of this Spanish com­mu­nity.

The meta­mor­pho­sis derives from a con­tin­ued growth result­ing from inten­sive olive grove farm­ing. This has helped expand the cul­ti­vated sur­face to the point olives are now Extremadura’s largest crop.

Intensive and super inten­sive olive cul­ti­va­tion offers advan­tages that have con­tributed to its pro­lif­er­a­tion in Extremadura in the last few years. Intensive and super inten­sive meth­ods facil­i­tate mech­a­niza­tion, eas­ing man­age­ment and sav­ing costs. Their irri­ga­tion grants sta­bil­ity to the crops. The reduced har­vest­ing costs lead to a more prof­itable effort amid a grow­ing global demand and reduced pro­duc­tion in some other olive grow­ing areas.

Extremadura’s olive sector’s rev­o­lu­tion is led by Badajoz, Spain’s top olive oil pro­ducer out­side Andalusia. Badajoz rep­re­sents 88.6 per­cent of Extremadura’s olive pro­duc­tion, 3.5 per­cent of Spain’s pro­duc­tion and 1.7 per­cent of the world’s pro­duc­tion.

Between 2006 and 2017 Badajoz’s olive grove sur­face grew by almost 25 per­cent. Although tra­di­tional groves still rep­re­sent around 80 per­cent of the region’s total sur­face, inten­sive, irri­gated groves are grow­ing at a faster pace of 67.5 per­cent ver­sus 9 per­cent of tra­di­tional plan­ta­tions.

Badajoz and Cáceres are the main olive oil-pro­duc­ing provinces in Extremadura, which in the 2017/18 cam­paign har­vested a total of 73,000 tons of olives, a fig­ure that is expected to reach 100,000 soon. This increase has had an impact on olive mills, which are adapt­ing their facil­i­ties to han­dle a larger pro­duc­tion with greater qual­ity and also mak­ing a bet on olive tourism. Private label olive oil brands also grew sig­nif­i­cantly in the region.

Extremadura has sev­eral autho­rized olive vari­eties for olive oil and table olives includ­ing Manzanilla de Sevilla, Cornicabra, Picual, Morisca, Cornezuelo and Verdial de Badajoz.

Manzanilla Cacereña is the region’s olive star and was respon­si­ble for help­ing pro­mote Extremaduran brands inter­na­tion­ally. Some projects are revi­tal­iz­ing rare vari­eties like Azulejo or Pico Limón, grown on cen­te­nary trees.

Gata-Hurdes and Aceite Monterrubio are the community’s two DOPs for olive oil and are pro­moted by Alimentos de Extremadura, the community’s pro­mo­tional body for its geo­graphic des­ig­na­tions. Both pro­duce out­stand­ing oils with fruity aro­mas.

Gata-Hurdes pro­tects EVOO obtained exclu­sively from olives of the Manzanilla Cacereña vari­ety har­vested by hand.

Monterrubio’s olive groves are younger but pro­duce a very high-qual­ity olive oil from Cornezuelo, Picual or Jabata vari­eties. Only EVOOs with an acid­ity of less than 1 per­cent are cer­ti­fied.

Quality improve­ment of olive oils has been a key com­ple­ment to inten­sive cul­ti­va­tion meth­ods in the trans­for­ma­tion of Extremadura’s olive oil sec­tor. One major dif­fer­ence has been that olives are now har­vested ear­lier with the objec­tive of obtain­ing more fruity and aro­matic oils with longer shelf lives, even if this might sig­nif­i­cantly lower yields.

This qual­ity has been rec­og­nized locally, where more oils are qual­i­fied as extra vir­gin, and inter­na­tion­ally at com­pe­ti­tions includ­ing the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Some com­pa­nies are already export­ing oils to inter­na­tional mar­kets as Italy or the United States.

Innovation is also at the industry’s fore­front. An exam­ple is Ecolibor, a com­pany in Cáceres that pro­duced an olive oil with unusu­ally high phe­no­lic lev­els, which is attrib­uted mainly to Extremadura’s ter­roir.

It is expected that approx­i­mately 20,000 new olive grove hectares will be planted in the next few years and it appears inten­sive and super inten­sive plant­i­ngs will lead the future path of the olive oil sec­tor in Extremadura, offer­ing com­pet­i­tive price options for more pro­fes­sional crops, while rep­re­sent­ing another chal­lenge to tra­di­tional olive groves with higher pro­duc­tion costs.

• El Diario de Extremadura


• Extremadura 21


• CTAEX