Severe Drought Drives 50% Surge in Moroccan Olive Oil Prices, Impacting Families

Olive oil is out of reach in Morocco. The prices of this very consumed product have increased by 50% over one year, going from around 90 dirhams per liter at the beginning of the year to 140, or even 150 dirhams per liter in the big cities. This record price hike is fueling counterfeiting and speculation around olive oil. Reda Tahiri, a young olive grower, justifies this price surge by the drop in yield. "Last year, we had a small olive production. This year, it’s even less. If we don’t have olives, we can’t have oil. It’s a matter of availability of the raw material," he explains to H24info.

And to add: "Last year, it was a question of drought and heat. We had a good flowering, but the episodes of excessive heat carbonized the flowers. This year, it’s the high temperatures in January and February that prevented the olive tree from entering the vegetative rest phase. In short, these are the effects of climate change." The informal sector is also a cause of the rise in prices. "In Morocco, the informal circuit represents the bulk of the marketing of olive oil. Generally, people buy almost directly from the producer, through one or two intermediaries at most," confides Hicham D, a distributor in the informal sector.

To cope with the soaring prices of olive oil, the government has announced a series of measures to, in particular, facilitate the import of this product. "The government is trying to play on the parameters it can control. Last year, it was the ban on exporting olive oil. This year, it is probably to facilitate its import. But in both cases, there will be zero impact," analyzes Reda Tahiri, arguing that imports will not lower prices "due to the importance of the informal sector. More than 90% of production is sold through unstructured networks."

To lower prices, "it will take huge quantities for there to be abundance. It’s practically impossible. The lack of production or the effect of scarcity is enormous. We are talking about thousands of tons not produced," says the olive grower who fears difficult times. As solutions, he proposes to produce local olive varieties "that are resistant to their environment", rather than "using imported seeds that produce more, but consume a lot of water".