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Image showing olives collected in a tractor trailer after a day in the olive groves of Malaga province. SUR
Farmers on the ropes in the province as olive harvest stagnates in Malaga
Agriculture

Farmers on the ropes in the province as olive harvest stagnates in Malaga

The estimate for the 2024/2025 season is 37,800 tonnes, only a slight 3.7% improvement on last year's production

Matías Stuber

Malaga

Monday, 21 October 2024, 15:40

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Olive production will be round about the same in Malaga this year, with the province set to produce just 37,800 tonnes, according to official estimates. The figure is only a 3.7% increase compared to last year's production (31,000 tonnes).

It's a bitter-sweet feeling in the sector where a clear improvement will be recorded in the Andalusian provinces of Jaén and Cordoba. However, in Malaga, the mood for the current season is that production has stagnated. For Jaen, olive oil production has been estimated at 445,000 tonnes, 43.6% more. In Cordoba it will reach 271,000 tonnes, 26.5% more. Oil production in Malaga is relegated to a lower level in the region, where only Almeria, Cadiz and Huelva recorded worse figures. However, these are lesser-known areas for olive growers.

Campillos farmer Benito Avilés said he has been on his tractor every day for the past week, accompanied by his team, combing the groves in search of olives. "The harvest is going to be a little better than last year. Expectations were much better if we take into account that the weather was good. The rain that came in during the spring did the fields a lot of good. But, especially where there are old olive groves, production is going to be greatly reduced," he told SUR.

Meanwhile, nationally, the ministry of agriculture estimated a production of 1.26 million tonnes this season. This is almost 50% more than that produced in the previous season, with the minister for agriculture Luis Planas describing the figures as "positive".

However, Asaja president Baldomero Bellido did not share the same optimism. "We started the season with great uncertainty. Now we are busy with table olives, which are a good quality. But the oil production that is expected is not much to shout about, nor is it very much," he pointed out.

Prices could drop

The increase in production on a national scale opens the door to a drop in the cost of oil. Dcoop president Antonio Luque said he is in favour of a return to normal prices following a sharp increase in the price of olive oil since the start of the inflation crisis in Spain.

The longed-for reduction in prices, however, threatens farmers in Malaga. If in other provinces this drop can be compensated by the increase in production, Malaga farmers could lose out as they receive less per kilo of olives but cannot compensate for a higher quantity.

"It is becoming increasingly difficult to make a living from the countryside and there is no generational replacement," Manuel Cebrián, president of the Mollina Cooperative, said. For this reason, farmers' association Asaja is calling for a compensation fund for the province's farmers.

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