Olive oil: oil mills sound the alarm: ‘Without urgent action, the olive harvest is at risk’
Some of the leading olive oil producers’ associations are highlighting market imbalances that are undermining the value of stocks and jeopardising the liquidity needed for the next harvest season. They have called for an emergency meeting to be convened immediately with the MASAF and the regions.
On the one hand, warehouses full of oil, still occupied by unsold stock from last season; on the other, a lack of liquidity is causing difficulties for Italian olive oil mills. ‘The tie-up of capital in stockpiled produce risks, in fact, preventing mills from purchasing and paying for the new harvest within the timeframes set out by the regulations’, with the very real risk that many operators ‘will not be in a position to collect the olives and oil from the next olive-oil season’. This is the warning issued by some of the leading national and regional associations of olive oil producers, which have signed and sent a joint document to the authorities ‘on the serious crisis in the olive and olive oil sector’.
The crisis also stems from the significant imbalance observed during the last harvest: “oil millers purchased the raw material at particularly high prices – according to a statement – whilst subsequent market prices fell below the costs incurred. Companies are thus forced to choose between keeping the oil in storage or selling it at a significant financial loss’.
The situation is made even more difficult by “rising energy, logistics and transport costs, as well as the costs associated with the handling and management of olive pomace and olive mill wastewater”.
“This is not a crisis that affects only processing companies. If the oil mills come to a standstill,” says Alberto Amoroso, president of Aifo (Italian Association of Olive Oil Millers), “olive growers will be left without a market for their harvest and the stability of the entire Italian olive oil supply chain will be jeopardised. That is why we need to take action now, before the start of the new season.”
The associations also criticise “the failure to involve olive oil millers in key institutional discussions, starting with the Olive Oil Round Table convened by the Ministry of Agriculture on 14 July, which was not attended by representatives of businesses, cooperatives and industrial processors. This situation is also evident at regional level, in the round-table discussions dedicated to forthcoming measures and calls for proposals for the sector’.
