Olive Oil News

Don’t forget to enter our great 2012 Quality is Clear Cut Subscriber Competition, generously sponsored by Eclipse Enterprises Australia. Just tell us about how you prune your grove and you’ll be in the running to win one of three great prizes, each valued at over $2,600. Entry forms in the Mar-May and June-July editions of Olivegrower & Processor or via the competition link in the ad below. Entries close June 30 – don’t miss out on your chance to win the latest new pruning equipment from Campagnola.

NZ Plant and Food Research and Massey University have developed a spreadsheet model for determining olive maturity. The decision of when to harvest is particularly challenging at the best of times, let alone in a year when the weather has affected flowering, fruit set, susceptibility to anthracnose etc, so this is a great aid for growers. The spreadsheets were emailed out to all members but are also available on the Olives NZ website http://www.olivesnz.org.nz/members-news/grower-manual/maturity-indicator-model-when-to-harvest/

In 300 BC, the Syrian city of Antioch had public street lighting fuelled by olive oil. At the 1900 Paris World Fair, German inventor Rudolph Diesel demonstrated his engine powered by peanut oil. Biofuels are not new, but many of the technologies are; and interest in renewable, sustainable biofuels has recently been rising due to worry about peak oil and price pressures, vulnerability of energy supplies, dependence on imports and greenhouse emissions. In April this year, Qantas made its first flight using a 50-50 blend of refined cooking oil and regular jet fuel.

US Senator Charles E. Schumer has called on the US Department of Agriculture to reject plans to change the standards for olive oil in the United States, a move that could have devastating consequences for Sovena and its 200 employees in Rome (USA), he said. Schumer is urging government officials to disregard a “costly and ineffective” proposed marketing order that would change the standard definitions, testing methodology and labeling guidelines for domestically sold olive oils.

A decline in olive and pomace oil imports into Canada and Australia is “worrying,” the International Olive Council declares in its April newsletter. It reports that October-February imports into Canada and Australia were 20 and 5% lower respectively than the same period last season. “This is particularly worrying” it says “because this downward movement has been happening for three months in a row.”

Despite their reputation for being very much an acquired taste, the lowly olive has actually been one of the most important crops in human history. First cultivated more than 10,000 years ago, olives have been used in food, hygiene products, religion, medicine, and in the lamps that lit the homes of the great thinkers of our past such as Homer and Socrates. Virtually every culture in southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa utilized olives in their day to day lives, and in the process of founding our modern world.

For the third time in eight months, the European Commission is to subsidise the temporary withdrawal of olive oil from the market in the hope rock bottom farm gate prices improve. An EC committee voted in favor of private storage aid (PSA) to cover 100,000 tons of virgin and extra virgin olive oil for up to 180 days. The aid will be available in all EU producer countries, namely Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. It is allocated via a tender process and the first offers will be accepted starting on May 31.