Spain: Rains paralyze the olive harvest and further strain olive oil prices

The rains that have been falling in recent days, although welcome, complicate the recently started olive harvest. With a market as sensitive as that of olive oil, where inclement weather has an immediate effect on prices, “paralyzing the harvest further strains the rope in a 2024-2025 campaign that has only started with 186,304 initial stocks, a link so short not seen since 2015, that if olives cannot be harvested for just a few days, it can lead to the bottling industry - which currently has oil for only 30 days - being left with nothing and can cause prices to rise again”. This was stated by the managing director of Oleoestepa, Álvaro Olavarría, during the celebration of the XXIX ASAJA-Sevilla Olive Grove Conference, which was held in Estepa in collaboration with the D.O.P Estepa. In his analysis of the current situation of the olive oil market, Olavarría said that this lack of oil is reflected in imports for the 2023-2024 campaign, now closed, which have been 246,200 tonnes, ...