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As the last of the season’s olive oil decants in mills across the country, Spanish officials said production reached 850,157 tons in the 2023/24 crop year.
While this year’s olive oil yield remains significantly below the five-year average, it exceeded initial expectations by 11 percent and surpassed last year’s historically poor harvest by 28 percent.
According to Juan Vilar, a strategic consultant for the olive oil sector, several factors explain why the harvest was better than anticipated.
See Also:Spanish Producers Celebrate Award-Winning Finish After Demanding Harvest“One was the price of olive oil,” he told Olive Oil Times. “This meant that no one abandoned olives in the olive groves; everything was harvested. There was also more fruit than expected, but with less oil than was initially anticipated.”
Vilar added that high olive oil prices also led many table olive producers to divert their harvest for olive oil production, further contributing to the higher-than-expected yield.
Andalusia led the way, with production in the southernmost autonomous community rebounding to 576,615 tons, including harvests of 205,572 and 151,294 tons in Jaén and Córdoba, respectively.
This was followed by Castille-La Mancha, which produced 108,636 tons; Extremadura, where the yield reached 68,731 tons; and Catalonia, with 32,467 tons. Spain’s remaining ten olive oil-producing autonomous communities combined to yield 63,708 tons.
With the table olive harvest entering its eighth month in Spain, the ministry said production reached 408,000 tons.
Similarly to olive oil, the final table olive yield exceeded the initial estimate of 387,800 tons. Still, it will finish below the 414,200 tons of the previous year and 22 percent below the five-year average.
Looking ahead to the 2024/25 crop year, which begins in October, Vilar and ministry officials are optimistic that Spanish olive oil production will return to normal.
Spain produced an average of 1.4 million tons annually in the five years before the historically low harvest of 2022/23.
“There have been no problems [in Andalusian olive groves],” Vilar said. “Everything is going reasonably well.”
He added that southern Spain had received enough rainfall to meet the water needs of the region’s irrigated olive groves throughout the summer.
During its announcement of the latest production figures, the ministry confirmed Vilar’s stance and asserted that a better harvest would result in lower olive oil prices at origin.
“Regarding the forecast for the next harvest, estimates point to a recovery in production thanks to the rainfall and good weather conditions in recent weeks,” Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said.
“As a consequence, prices are expected to be below the high levels recorded in the current campaign,” the ministry added.
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