Production in Italy Set for Sharp Decline, Down One-Third

Summary

The chang­ing cli­mate is caus­ing a sig­nif­i­cant drop in Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion, with esti­mates pre­dict­ing a decrease of up to 235,000 tons for the 2024/25 crop year. The decline is pri­mar­ily attrib­uted to pro­longed drought, par­tic­u­larly affect­ing south­ern regions, lead­ing to con­cerns that Italy may drop from sec­ond to fifth place among the world’s top olive oil pro­duc­ers.

“We’ve wit­nessed first­hand how cli­mate change has increas­ingly impacted our daily work in the groves over the past few years,” said Pietro Nicotra, the co-owner of Agrestis, a Sicilian olive oil coop­er­a­tive.

Once again, the chang­ing cli­mate is severely affect­ing Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion. Officials have con­firmed that the 2024/25 crop year will suf­fer a sig­nif­i­cant drop in out­put.

According to a new report from the Italian Institute of Services for the Agricultural and Food Market (Ismea), total pro­duc­tion is esti­mated to drop between 215,000 and 235,000 tons.

A slightly more cau­tious esti­mate from the Italian Association of the Edible Oil Industry (Assitol) pre­dicted a yield of just 200,000 tons.

By com­par­i­son, Ismea reported that the 2023/24 crop year yielded more than 328,000 tons, 32 per­cent higher than the expected out­put for the upcom­ing sea­son. Ismea noted that the aver­age pro­duc­tion over the last five sea­sons has been 307,000 tons.

Given these fig­ures, Ismea warned that Italy risks drop­ping from sec­ond to fifth place among the world’s top olive oil pro­duc­ers.

Both Ismea and Assitol have attrib­uted the pro­duc­tion decline pri­mar­ily to pro­longed drought, par­tic­u­larly affect­ing south­ern regions.

Additionally, they noted that this year is pri­mar­ily an ​‘off-year’ in the nat­ural alter­nate-bear­ing cycle of olive trees.

Yields are expected to vary sig­nif­i­cantly across the coun­try, with north­ern and cen­tral regions less affected by unfa­vor­able weather.

Ismea projects that Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria will see pro­duc­tion rebounds of more than 70 per­cent com­pared to last sea­son. In north­ern Italy, the rebound is expected to sur­pass 74 per­cent, despite an uniden­ti­fied issue result­ing in mys­te­ri­ous fruit drop in some groves.

Drought and heat­waves have had the most severe impact on major olive-pro­duc­ing regions, includ­ing Sicily, Calabria and Puglia, which account for most of Italy’s olive oil out­put.

Yields are expected to drop by at least 41 per­cent in these areas, along with those of Sardinia, Basilicata, Campania, Marche and Molise.

The award-win­ning Agrestis coop­er­a­tive in Buccheri, Sicily, has endured sev­eral chal­leng­ing years, demon­strat­ing the resilience of high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers.

Over the years, the coop­er­a­tive has earned numer­ous acco­lades for the qual­ity of its olive oil, includ­ing mul­ti­ple Gold Awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition since 2015.

“The per­sis­tent drought places tremen­dous stress on our olive trees, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for them to pro­duce abun­dant fruit,” Nicotra said.

During the flow­er­ing period, the unusu­ally warm spring and the extreme tem­per­a­tures in May directly impacted the pro­duc­tion of Agrestis’ olive trees.

“The fluc­tu­a­tion in tem­per­a­tures between day and night, along with mois­ture set­tling on the plants, caused flower burn,” Nicotra said. ​“As a result, we expe­ri­enced a dev­as­tat­ing 80 per­cent loss of this year’s har­vest.”

“Despite all these chal­lenges, we remain com­mit­ted,” she added. ​“Though the quan­tity is low, the olive oil we pro­duce embod­ies our tra­di­tions and the native cul­ti­vars that have defined this land for cen­turies.”

Many pro­duc­ers in Puglia also reported a sig­nif­i­cant drop in pro­duc­tion, although some areas expe­ri­enced fewer losses.

“This year has been par­tic­u­larly chal­leng­ing. We’re com­ing off a low pro­duc­tion sea­son, which affected the fruit set again this year, fol­lowed by severe drought. Even dur­ing win­ter, rain­fall was scarce,” said Nicola Lamedica, olive spe­cial­ist at Voglia di Puglia farm, located in the north­ern­most part of the south­ern region.

“Our strat­egy relies on drip irri­ga­tion and tra­di­tional olive-grow­ing meth­ods to com­bat the adverse cli­matic con­di­tions we’re fac­ing,” Lamedica added. ​“Through advanced prun­ing tech­niques and con­stant care of the plants, we’ve main­tained high-qual­ity fruit, which is now in excel­lent con­di­tion.”

In the cen­tral region of Umbria, pro­duc­ers said this sea­son appears far more fruit­ful than the last.

“Last sea­son was very chal­leng­ing. We’ve just started, but this new one makes us extremely opti­mistic,” said Miriam Cinaglia and Sergio Rutili, owner and gen­eral man­ager of the award-win­ning Centumbrie.

“The raw mate­r­ial is excel­lent, and from our ini­tial impres­sions, the organolep­tic pro­file looks very promis­ing,” they explained.

“From a quan­ti­ta­tive per­spec­tive, we expect strong pro­duc­tion in Umbria this sea­son. Unlike last year, the dru­pes are richer in pulp, which raises hopes for fur­ther improve­ments in the qual­ity of the final prod­uct,” Cinaglia and Rutili added.

Further north, Casale 3 Danesi, near Lucca, Tuscany, man­ages a 450-tree olive orchard and expects a much more boun­ti­ful har­vest this sea­son than the last.

“This year, the weather has been per­fect through­out the entire sea­son,” said Henrik Jorgensen, the farm’s owner. ​“We usu­ally face numer­ous weather chal­lenges, such as early spring heat fol­lowed by sud­den freezes, which cause flower loss. But this year, we’ve avoided those issues.”

Additionally, the organic pro­ducer has ben­e­fited from the absence of the olive fruit fly this year.

“A frost last­ing at least three days in win­ter usu­ally kills most flies below the soil’s sur­face. This year, we didn’t have any olive flies, which is a great relief,” Jorgensen said.

“When the olive fruit fly is present, we can only use tra­di­tional fly traps since we are organic pro­duc­ers,” he added.

According to Ismea, Italy has more than 619,000 olive-related com­pa­nies and farms and 4,327 active mills.

Of Italy’s 1.16 mil­lion hectares of olive groves, 247,000 hectares, more than 21 per­cent, are cul­ti­vated organ­i­cally.