Olive Oil Prices Plummet as Morocco’s Harvest Booms

The first indicators of the current season are promising for both farmers and consumers, said Mustapha Kamal, manager of a cooperative in Kalaa des Sraghna, to Al3omk, stating that olive prices in local markets now range between 6 and 8 dirhams per kilogram, a sharp drop reflecting the exceptional abundance of this year’s harvest. For him, this year is truly a "year of prosperity", with the olive groves in the region experiencing abundant production. According to him, the second factor contributing to the drop in prices is the presence of a surplus of olive oil imported from countries such as Tunisia and Spain during the previous period.

"The large factories that previously depended on buying local olives at high prices have resorted to imports, which has led to a significant stock on the market," Kamal said, convinced that this surplus, added to the abundant local production, will exert downward pressure on prices. The price of a liter of olive oil should be between 50 and 60 dirhams as the season progresses, he estimated. He hopes that this season will be full of benefits and blessings for farmers, producers and consumers, and that things will return to normal with reasonable prices that everyone can benefit from.

Kamal, however, notes that the size of the olives this season seems relatively small. "When the tree is too heavily laden with fruit, it cannot nourish all the olives to reach their maximum size," he explains, stressing that the maturation of the olives has been delayed by about a month this year, thus extending the harvest and pressing season until the months of January and February.

Kamal also praised the high quality of the olive oil from the Kalaa des Sraghna region, highly appreciated throughout Morocco. According to him, this quality is explained by unique natural factors: "The Sraghna region occupies a central position and is characterized by a dry climate, hard soil and intense summer heat, conditions that allow the olive tree to produce the best varieties of oil and olives, known for their distinctive flavor, high viscosity and pleasant bitterness."