Weeks of Rain and Flooding Slow Spain’s Olive Harvest, Threatening Output Targets

Summary

The arti­cle dis­cusses the impact of cli­mate change on global food pro­duc­tion, high­light­ing the chal­lenges faced by farm­ers and the need for sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture prac­tices to ensure food secu­rity. It empha­sizes the impor­tance of adapt­ing to chang­ing cli­mate con­di­tions and invest­ing in resilient crop vari­eties to mit­i­gate the risks posed by extreme weather events.

Persistent rain and stormy weather through­out December and January have ham­pered Spain’s olive har­vest, dam­aged trees and flooded groves.

The Spanish Association of Olive Municipalities (AEMO) now esti­mates that the coun­try will pro­duce 1.2 to 1.22 mil­lion met­ric tons of olive oil in the 2025/26 crop year, which began in October.

AEMO fore­cast that cumu­la­tive pro­duc­tion reached 720,000 tons at the end of December, about 170,000 tons lower than at the same period in the pre­vi­ous har­vest.

The asso­ci­a­tion indi­cated that olives falling from trees and the slowed pace of har­vest­ing due to the inclement weather meant the coun­try would not meet the 1.35 mil­lion-ton fore­cast announced late last year.

AEMO also warned that the per­cent­age of olive oil clas­si­fied as extra vir­gin in Spain would be lower than usual due to delays in har­vest­ing and instances of frost in some olive groves.

“A large per­cent­age of the oil pro­duced will be in the vir­gin and lam­pante cat­e­gories,” the asso­ci­a­tion con­firmed.

Jaén, the Andalusian province respon­si­ble for a plu­ral­ity of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion, has been espe­cially impacted.

Heavy rains from Storm Leonardo have flooded olive groves, leav­ing some areas inac­ces­si­ble, water­log­ging fruit and pre­vent­ing man­ual and mechan­i­cal har­vests.

Producer groups esti­mate that at least 50,000 tons of poten­tial olive oil pro­duc­tion have already been lost in the province. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food (MAPA) show that Jaén’s olive oil yield is expected to fin­ish 45 per­cent lower than last year.

Agricultural groups in the provinces of Córdoba and Seville warned that the rainy weather meant the har­vest would con­tinue later into the year than usual and antic­i­pated that pro­duc­tion would be lower than expected as a result.

Overall, MAPA data show that Andalusia had pro­duced about 485,300 tons of olive oil by the end of December, indi­cat­ing that the autonomous com­mu­nity will almost cer­tainly fall sev­eral hun­dred thou­sand tons short of the 1.1 mil­lion ton fore­cast at the start of the crop year.

The con­stant rains and strong storms sweep­ing across Andalusia this win­ter have also caused longer-term dam­age across the world’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region.

As strong winds uprooted trees and dam­aged branches, the region’s Plant Health Alert and Information Network warned of long-term impacts linked to flood­ing.

“The main prob­lems asso­ci­ated with these anom­alous pre­cip­i­ta­tion events are: root asphyx­i­a­tion, phys­i­cal dam­age to the trees, soil ero­sion, dif­fi­culty in car­ry­ing out cul­tural work, and an increase in the inci­dence of dis­eases,” the net­work said.

While the wind and rain have caused plenty of dam­age this sea­son, AEMO said the abun­dant pre­cip­i­ta­tion would be ben­e­fi­cial for olive grow­ers and other farm­ers in the medium term.

“Reservoirs are fill­ing up, and the soil will begin spring with high mois­ture lev­els, but that’s another story,” the asso­ci­a­tion said.

According to the Association of Young Farmers (Asaja), olive groves across the coun­try have been impacted, though some less sig­nif­i­cantly than those in Andalusia.

MAPA data show that Castille-La Mancha, Spain’s sec­ond-largest pro­duc­ing region, has already yielded 82,740 tons of olive oil. The har­vest was largely com­pleted as the rains began, but pro­duc­tion is expected to fall far below the roughly 130,000 tons pro­duced last year.

Meanwhile, in the west­ern autonomous com­mu­nity of Extremadura, Spain’s third-largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region, farm­ers and millers expect a slight increase to 80,500 tons despite storms inter­rupt­ing and delay­ing the har­vest.

Producers in Catalonia, the fourth-largest pro­duc­ing com­mu­nity, came into the har­vest with high expec­ta­tions of 35,000 tons of pro­duc­tion.

Ministry data show the autonomous com­mu­nity had pro­duced 29,140 tons by the end of January and was widely expected to meet orig­i­nal esti­mates, sig­nif­i­cantly exceed­ing last year’s very poor har­vest.