Future-Proofing Olive Farming:
Balancing Tradition and Modern Practices

Balancing productivity with sustainability will be crucial to ensuring the long-term viability of olive farming in Spain amidst changing climate conditions.

Sponsored Content | / This article is sponsored by Certified Origins | By José Luis García Melgarejo | Published 1 month ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: Jose Francisco Fernandez Saura

Olive trees have shown historical resilience to environmental changes and are very well adapted to the Mediterranean climate — which is characterized by prolonged summer drought, irregular rain the rest of the year and fairly mild winters.

In Spain, the country with the largest cultivated area under olives (2.7 million hectares), time has molded the so-called traditional olive farm: made up of long-lived, large trees — widely spaced and usually not watered. However, this system’s poor productivity per hectare and the growth in demand for olive oil around the world have prompted a process of transformation — with higher-density planting systems and smaller trees better suited to mechanized picking.

Olive farming: Productivity vs sustainability

Today, the traditional system remains dominant; although it is slowly losing ground to more modern farms — known as intensive (200-500 trees/ha) or superintensive (1500-3000 trees/ha), due to their density. While intensive and superintensive olive-farming methods offer higher productivity and efficiency, they also pose sustainability challenges — particularly, in terms of water usage and soil health.

Thankfully, the Spanish olive sector is responding by adopting sustainable practices — such as precision farming and organic methods — to mitigate these challenges. Balancing productivity with sustainability will be crucial to ensuring the long-term viability of olive farming in Spain amidst changing climate conditions.

Spain's changing climate

The climate projections for Andalusia, the region producing about 80 percent of Spain's olive oil, suggest that the temperature could rise almost 1.5°C by 2050 and as much as 3.5°C by 2100.

At the same time, a general reduction in precipitation is expected; though it varies from one zone to another, this could mean up to 23 percent less rainfall — it is expected to be highly erratic, alternating between extreme rainfall events and prolonged periods of drought. With forecasts like these, the impact of climate change on olive growing in Spain could be profound.

The effect can already be seen in smaller harvests when these extremes — water stress and high temperature — coincide with the moment of flowering or ripening of the fruits. Moreover, an increase in torrential rain could cause soil erosion — which affects its capacity to retain water and nutrients — leading to a gradual decline in volume of production, especially on mountainous or steeper ground.

Water is key

According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, 75 percent of the territory of Spain is at risk of desertification — making it the European nation most threatened by the problem. The consequences of a rise in temperature together with a decrease in precipitation would not only affect olive farms that do not have water for irrigation (rainfed), but also the irrigated ones — because water needs would increase as the available reserves decline.

Looking to the future, it will be necessary to apply strategies that enhance the management and efficiency of water use — including reducing water loss in distribution channels, improving water use calendars using meteorological information and humidity sensors, and even matching the types of farms to its predicted availability in each territory.

Conscious of the situation, the Spanish olive sector has been expanding its environmental commitment and boosting the sustainability of its operations by introducing more drought-resistant olive varieties and applying techniques such as precision farming — which observes and analyzes the needs of crops using drones, smart sensors or automated irrigation systems.

Organic farming to combat climate change

Governments, organizations, companies and society increasingly recognize organic farming as a system inherently suited to sustainability and the mitigation of climate change; and agrifood producers and companies are among those that could most contribute to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in this area.

After France, Spain is the European Union country with the largest area devoted to organic production; and it ranks seventh in the world. The land dedicated to organic production in Spain rose by 5 percent in 2022 to reach nearly 2.8M hectares — representing 10.95 percent of the country’s utilized agricultural area.

One of Spain’s agronomic objectives is protecting the soil by preventing erosion and increasing biodiversity. Techniques from organic farming are inspiring soil-management measures such as putting down plant cover between lines of olive trees — in conjunction with shredding the prunings, this can lower the ambient temperature, and enhances the soil's water retention capacity and even its ability to capture atmospheric CO2.

The excellent results obtained with these practices are helping to drive an organic transition for olive farms. The improved soil quality, encouraging biodiversity, efficient use of water, energy efficiency and carbon capture allow producers and companies to adapt not only to agricultural and environmental policies — but also to the new models of relationships between providers, clients and consumers in the agrifood chain.