Context

Despite the strength of the olive grove in the Extremaduran economy, the industries that process olives for oil and table olives have several weaknesses and threats that diminish their competitiveness in the production and marketing of these oils and table olives obtained with respect to other olive-growing areas of the country.
These weaknesses lie in the need to seek greater competitiveness and sustainability of the olive grove in order to become a tool against climate change, and to extend it throughout the olive value chains, both in the mill and in the dressing and flavouring industries. This is all the more important in view of the effects of climate change, which must lead olive growers to take measures to ensure that their olive trees remain competitive and that neither the volume nor the quality of their production is affected.
At the same time, digitalisation is becoming increasingly necessary in order to be able to use objective systems to make decisions that minimise risks and losses (not only economic losses, but also losses of top quality product, which can be reduced to a product that cannot be packaged). It is not only important to measure and quantify, but also to transfer the information in a quick, efficient and understandable way for decision making.
Added to this is the need to bring to the sector new innovative services that have shown great potential in recent years, such as NIR technology.

Additional information

This project is designed not only to benefit, but also to involve all the actors in the virgin olive oil and table olive value chains, i.e. from the olive grower who produces olives to the industries that add value to these olives by transforming them into oil and/or table olives.
With the participation of Viñaoliva as leader of the consortium, the project would cover more than 20% of the production of mill olives and 15% of the production of table olives in Extremadura. In addition, with the participation of Cooperativas Agroalimentarias de Extremadura, the achievements are guaranteed to reach 55% of the olive oil production volume in the region, and 37% of the table olive production. All this, together with the action of CTAEX, is expected to reach mills representing more than 75% of the regional production and more than 60% of the regional production of table olives.
Furthermore, this project does not distinguish between smallholder olive growers or agro-investors, nor does it differentiate between cooperative companies or entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is a project of global scope, which seeks to catalyse all the actors to achieve greater competitiveness and sustainability in the face of a future in which climate change will be a factor that will not favour the countryside in the short and medium term. For this reason, the Operational Group considers giving great importance to the development of useful tools and solutions, easy and economical to implement. This, with effective means of communication and, above all, close to the actors of the two value chains, will have a significant impact on the entire Extremaduran sector.