To lead the markets with a harvest close to 1.6 million tons

The next campaign 2018 / 2019 will be decisive for our Spanish sector, for both producers and exporters. If good estimations about world production of olive oil that could reach 3,100,000 tons are confirmed, according to the capacity made by the Department of Olive Studies of the Center of Excellence of Olive Oil of GEA (CEAO) Spain will count again with half of world production thanks to a 26% increase in production, reaching 1,580,000 tons.

According to this research, the 11.8 million hectares of olive groves spread across the five continents will reach an olive production close to 18.9 million tons in the next campaign. In this sense, we must highlight the abnormal distribution of production in the large producing countries since "the only one that will increase production in the next campaign will be Spain and bring together after four campaigns more than half of production world olive, "says Rafael Cárdenas, Director of the CEAO of GEA. Also, the eight main olive-growing countries will offer 87.4% of the world production of olive oil.

Spain will record a large increase of over 26% compared to the previous campaign, reaching a production of 1,580,000 tons. Greece will again be the second largest producer with 230,000 tons. Turkey is the third producer country, with 220,000 tons due to the decline in production in Italy. Italy will produce 50% less, around 200,000 tons, so it means the fourth position. It is important to mention that Italy, for the third time in its history, falls to the fourth position of the olive oil producing countries, sharpening the trend in the decline in production that has been occurring during the last decade.

The fact is Spain will increase its production very significantly, well above the average of the last five years. This will cushion the decline of production in the Mediterranean countries and reinforce even more its global leadership in our olive oil sector. Spain, leader in production and commercialization.