Georgia Hosts Annual Olive Council Meetings for First Time

Guest speakers will discuss the North American, European and global olive oil sectors. IOC and Georgian officials will visit local olive groves.
Tbilisi, Georgia
By Paolo DeAndreis
Nov. 22, 2021 13:18 UTC

Two years after its ascen­sion to the International Olive Council (IOC), Georgia will host two of the inter­gov­ern­men­tal organization’s main annual events.

On November 24, the 57th meet­ing of the Advisory Committee will take place in Tbilisi, the country’s cap­i­tal city, fol­lowed by the 114th ses­sion of the IOC Council the next day.

Already, var­i­ous IOC com­mit­tees are meet­ing the Executive Secretariat by video­con­fer­ence. The com­mit­tees are in charge of ana­lyz­ing and explor­ing issues related to admin­is­tra­tive and finan­cial affairs, eco­nom­ics and pro­mo­tion, the olive oil obser­va­tory, stan­dard­iza­tion and research and tech­nol­ogy and envi­ron­ment.

See Also:Uzbekistan Joins Olive Council

On November 26, which also marks the two-year anniver­sary of the inau­gu­ra­tion of World Olive Day, IOC offi­cials will join their Georgian coun­ter­parts in the pres­i­den­tial palace to hear from a range of dif­fer­ent speak­ers.

Among them will be Gabriel Vigil, who over­sees the olive oil sec­tor at the European Commission; Joseph R. Profaci, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the North American Olive Oil Association and Juan Vilar, a strate­gic con­sul­tant for the olive sec­tor.

IOC offi­cials and Georgian del­e­gates also will visit local olive groves in Kakheti, the east­ern­most region of the coun­try with a long his­tory of wine pro­duc­tion, to see the progress that has been made by farm­ers since Georgia joined the IOC in 2019.

According to data from Juan Vilar Strategic Consultants, Georgia pro­duces about 900 tons of olive oil each year and 500 tons of table olives, almost all of which is con­sumed domes­ti­cally.

Georgia boasts about 2,500 hectares of olive groves, most of which are located in the south­west of the coun­try. Of these, 60 per­cent are planted at high-den­sity and 40 per­cent at super-high-den­sity.

During the 112th ses­sion of the IOC Council in November 2020, Georgia announced plans to grow 40 new hectares of olive groves with tech­ni­cal help from the IOC to sig­nif­i­cantly boost olive pro­duc­tion.”

Georgia enjoys being a fam­ily mem­ber of the IOC since 2019 and has embraced the oppor­tu­nity as an unprece­dented alter­na­tive for devel­op­ing the olive sec­tor,” Georgian Minister of Environment Protection and Agriculture Levan Davitashvili told the ses­sion.

Daniel Dawson con­tributed to this report.



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