Olive oil production in Spain will not meet initial estimates

According to a preliminary estimate from Spain’s Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias, the 2023/24 crop year has met expectations, albeit narrowly.

In a market bulletin published at the end of December, the county’s leading agricultural union estimated that production would rise to 755,000 tons by the end of the current harvest.

However, the latest figure is below the 766,362 tons Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food predicted in October.

Despite the promising forecast, some experts doubt production will reach 755,000 tons due to unexpectedly low oil yields from olives that have already been milled.

In a recent opinion column, César Lumbreras, the director of the agricultural news publication Agropopular, wrote that “the olive oil yield is lower than expected, so it will be difficult to achieve a final production of 700,000 tons.”

According to Lumbreras, Spanish olive oil yields are “greatly affected by drought and lack of water, and would require rain throughout the winter and spring for the trees to recover from the water stress situation, which they have suffered during the last two seasons.”

Approximately 70 percent of the country’s olive groves are not irrigated.

He told the Olive Oil Times that since the olive harvesting and milling campaign was almost complete, it was highly unlikely that Spain would achieve such high yields.

“In my opinion, we will achieve around 680,000 tons or 710,000 tons at best,” Vilar said. “Since we are already in January, adding 100,000 more tons to the amount already harvested is very difficult.”

“The total production already harvested, up to now, is under 600,000 tons,” he added. “If we have to achieve 755,000 tons, we need at least 150,000 tons this January, and the month is almost over. About 85 percent of farmers have already finished harvesting.”

Regardless of how the 2023/24 harvest finishes, it will surpass the record-low yield of the previous crop year, when Spain produced 664,033 tons.

The slight production rebound is primarily due to the effects of the Iberian peninsula’s historic drought being somewhat mitigated by rain.

However, large olive oil-producing regions, including Andalusia and Castilla-la-Mancha, with estimates of 550,600 tons and 86,000 tons in October, have fallen short by 30 and 23 percent, respectively.

Although not all harvest data has been counted for these regions, the current estimates are discouraging. As of January 2024, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the total harvest counted was 584,780 tons.

“We will have a better picture in February once the remaining 15 percent of farmers have completed their harvest,” Vilar said. “However, we will achieve no more than 720,000 tons.”

Tags: Spain, olive oil