Olive Season to Forget in Croatia

Olive harvesting is currently going on in Croatia, but after a season to forget it could be bad news for olive oil lovers…

Olive growers in the country’s best growing regions of Dalmatia and Istria have called this year’s crop as one of the worst in a very long time. After a relatively warm winter, followed by a wet summer this year, olive fruit flies have wreaked havoc on crops up and down the Adriatic coast. With such a poor season, supply levels are set to push the price up, with some speculating that a litre of extra virgin olive oil could pass the 100 kuna (13 euros) mark.

Olive crop to forget this year

“There are three reasons why the state of the olive industry this autumn is disastrous. First the mild winter, because if there are no cold days there is no differentiation of buds. In May and June, when the olives bloom, Croatia was hit by severe and prolonged rain and the olives could not reach pollination. The final catastrophic thing that happened was the arrival of the olive fruit fly parasite,” Krunoslav Kovačević from the Olives Institute in Zagreb told Tportal, adding that the reduced quantity of local olive oil on the market should not affect pricing too much.