Olive farmers hoping for sunny days to harvest better yield

By Omar Obeidat

IRBID — Farmers in the Kingdom’s northern region are hoping for more sunny days so they can harvest their olives.

The farmers told The Jordan Times they have been unable to properly reap their olive fruits over the past three weeks, because of heavy rain, although the harvesting season started in mid-October.

Sami Obeidat, who was at an olive press in the village of Hibras in Irbid, said the later the harvest, the worse the quality of olive oil is.

According to Obeidat, November is the best period to harvest olives because they are riper and have higher oil concentrations.



But if harvesting lasts until the second half of December, the fruits are affected by rainwater, which ultimately affects the quality of oil, lowering its concentration, he explained.

The same concerns were echoed by Mohammad Bsharat, who owns an olive press, and Ahmad Malkwai, an olive farm owner in Irbid’s Kfarat area.

“We love rain and we always pray for rainfall,” Malkwai said, but farmers are racing against time to have their crops harvested before December as the weather is expected to become harsher.

Usually the harvest season runs from October 15 to January 20.

Bsharat noted that rainfall over the past three weeks disrupted the process, with only limited quantities of olives transferred to presses.

Farmers have only been able to harvest some olives because it has been dry for almost a week now, he added.

The price of a 16-kilogramme container of oil in Kfarat, home to hundreds of thousands of olive trees, ranges between JD80 and JD85.

Demand for oil is higher than last year and production is expected to be greater, Bsharat said.

Olive oil production this year is expected to be around 24,000 tonnes, while it was estimated at 22,835 tonnes last year, according to official figures.

With more than 20 million trees across the Kingdom, Jordan is listed among the top 10 olive producing countries in the world.

[Source: The Jordan Times]

Categories: Jordan, News, Olive

Flavour and fragrance, not colour, determine olive oil quality — expert

by Khetam Malkawi

AMMAN — The aroma and flavour of olive oil are the key elements in its tasting and assessment, but its colour is not, an expert in olive oil tasting said.


Olive oil’s unique aroma and flavour depend on the olive tree variety, soil and cultivation, according to experts. Jordan Times

“Olive oil is one of the few foods that have an official tasting method to appreciate the aroma and flavour,” said Santiago Botas, a Spanish expert in olive oil tasting.

He noted that a panel of eight to 12 experts affiliated with the International Olive Oil Council (IOC) based in Madrid judge the aroma and flavour of olive oil to grade it.

Olive oil’s “unique aroma and flavour depend on the olive tree variety, soil and cultivation”, the expert explained in an interview with The Jordan Times, noting that there are more than 2,000 olive varieties across the world.

In Jordan, there are two main varieties of olive, Nabali and Souri, said Botas, who was a consultant on an olive oil project in the Kingdom 10 years ago.

“Each olive variety produces oil with different qualities,” he elaborated.

In terms of flavour, some varieties of oil are sweet and mild, while others have a robust bitterness.

”One can feel the sweetness in the tip of the tongue and the bitterness in the back of the tongue,” Botas said.

As for the aroma, he noted different oils can have different smells of fruit, vegetables and olive leaves.

The expert, who came to Amman to give a workshop on olive oil tasting organised by the Instituto Cervantes, dispelled the myth that the colour of oil is used to measure its quality.

“Some people think that the colour of the oil is also important, but it has nothing to do with quality or flavour,” Botas said, adding that professional olive oil tasters sample the oil out of blue containers so that they cannot prejudge the oil from its colour.

Meanwhile, Antonio Garcia Rios said the intake of two teaspoons of olive oil a day is beneficial to health.

He noted that a diet rich in extra virgin olive oil helps reduce LDL (“bad cholesterol”) levels and, perhaps more importantly, stimulates an increase in HDL (“good cholesterol”).

“Olive oil also lowers the incidence of heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases as well,” Rios said at the workshop.

[Source: Jordan Times]

Categories: Article, Jordan

Olive oil council to launch soon -- Haddadin

By Hana Namrouqa

AMMAN -- The long awaited higher council for olive oil will be established soon, pending Cabinet approval of a draft law governing its formation, Agriculture Ministry Spokesperson Nimer Haddadin said on Thursday.

Jordan produces between 25,000 to 35,000 tonnes of olive oil every season. Jordan Times

The bill, drawn up by representatives of the olive sector, was referred to the Cabinet last month, according to Haddadin.

"The council will be officially launched once the Legislation and Opinion Bureau studies the draft law," he told The Jordan Times.

The council will include 11 members from the public and private sectors and will be chaired by the minister of agriculture, Haddadin said.

"It will become a member of the International Olive Oil Council," he added.

Once established, the olive oil council will be an umbrella for olive producing and consuming stakeholders and will be in charge of drafting policies regulating the sector.

"The council will make policies to improve the olive oil sector in Jordan by addressing challenges facing olive oil producers and consumers, setting up marketing strategies and opening new market portals," Haddadin said.

Jordan is the world's eighth largest producer of olive oil, exporting its product to several countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the US.

This season's olive oil production is expected to amount to 35,536 tonnes, compared to 26,929 tonnes last year, according to the ministry.

The average per capita consumption of olive oil in Jordan stands at about 3.43 kilogrammes per year, and the country's overall annual consumption stands at about 21,773 tonnes.

A total of 125 olive oil presses are spread across the country, especially in the central and northern regions, with an investment volume exceeding JD200 million, according to figures from the Union of Olive Press Owners and Olive Producers.

Official figures indicate that there are around 20 million olive trees in Jordan, with average exports worth JD20 million per year.

[Source: Zawya.com]

Categories: Jordan, News