less than their historic average this season, following years of little rain that made some farmers’ wells go dry.
Winter and spring storms last spring in California eased the drought, but the cool weather and heavy precipitation slowed flowering and potentially lowered the amount of oil in each olive, according to Jim Lipman, chief operating officer at California Olive Ranch in Chico, the country’s biggest olive oil producer.
In an email to Grist, Lipman said that the high prices in Europe have increased demand for California oil and that California Olive Ranch has a strong crop heading into the upcoming harvest season, which starts in October. That said, early warming followed by frost has resulted in crop disasters in two of the last five seasons.
At Burroughs Family Farm in Denair, California, production has been fairly steady over the past few years, but “this year we are on the lower side” possibly as a result of an “incredible” amount of rain, said Benina Montes, managing partner at the regenerative almond and olive farm in California’s Central Valley. In a good year, the farm’s 10 acres of olives produce up to 40 tons of oil. This year, they yielded about three-quarters of that amount.
Montes said she hadn’t been following news of the shortage in Europe. But she figures the rise in demand caused by Spain’s low inventory might have helped her business. “No wonder our olive oil has been selling well on Amazon.”