Oil: -5% : but Italian production will be top- quality

The hard hot weather of the last weeks let us think, this will be probably a good year for the production of the Italian olive oil which should decrease less than predicted, --5% compared to 2008. There are some possibilities that this production will be qualitaty, with at least 15% of the whole production among PDO, biologic or “traceable”. These predictions put in evidence how positive for the oil, this hot weather has been in the last weeks.” The heat- it is cleared- has killed maggots and flies, that are the real enemies of the olive groves because they can affect the quality of the final product. The wet temperature, up to 40°, has also balanced the effects of the rain of June, that over all in some areas challenged a great loss in the olive fields”. Therefore the productions are positive, and after 2008, when 612.000 tons oil have been produced ( according to the data from ISTAT), +7% compared to 2007, this year the physiologic decrease should be less severe.
“In the so-called ‘unloading’ years – alternating to the years of very good production- it is stated – there can be a production loss up to 15%, but this year thanks to the favourable climate, the decline is likely to be around 5%”. If there will not be any shower or hard rain the prediction will come true. The current state of the olive groves in Italy, according to Ismea, is quite good with a good satisfying bloom almost everywhere, while the fruit set (the starting phase where the fruits develop) has been less positive. The situation, according to this Institute, is not very homogeneous. A good trend can be predicted in Apulia( gathering 40% of the olive oil production) and Calabria, while the predictions are not so positive in Lazio, Abruzzo and Sicily. Sure the very modern agronomic tecniques used in Apulia where the fields are watered with equipments, let us predict a high-quality production. It is likely to be similar to 2008’s , where 2-3% of the production was PDO production, 8-9% biologic production and 3-4%”traceable”, that is to say a production identified by a codex allowing to trace back the story of the product. The predictions arrive in a moment where the olive oil market, Ismea puts in evidence, seems to have new oxygen again. “ The foreign and Italian demand- the Institute explains- being still for a long time, has waken in the last weeks of July, letting prices go lower than in June. The extra virgin, originally exchanged for example, has reached € 2,45 per kilo, 6% more than the previous month”. According to Ismea, these values are still far from those able to help the sector come out from the deep crisis it is living, but this is certainly a positive trend.