World Olive Tree Day is celebrated on November 26. The mills are running at full speed. More and more followers are harvesting to extract green gold.
World Olive Tree Day is celebrated on November 26. It was proclaimed at the 40th session of the General Conference of Unesco, in 2019 and is celebrated every year on that date. The harvest of olives for oil has been going well since mid-October among olive growers, semi-professionals and individuals.
Family olive growing has a role to play
Out of 34,900 olive growers identified in France, 9,500 are professionals, or 27.3%, and 25,400 are non-family professionals. The latter represent nearly 20% of the contributions of olives to cooperatives.
“This is not negligible in view of the very modest national production between 6,000 and 7,000 tonnes / year compared to an annual world production of 3 million tonnes of which 50% is produced by Spain”, underlines Luc Poulain-d’Andecy, vice-president of the association Promolive.
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“It’s cultural”, “It’s family”
At the Moulin des Costières, in Saint-Gilles, retirees or workers arrive with their arms loaded with openwork crates filled with picholines, lucques or aglandau and pour their contents into the conquet with a capacity of 500 kg.
“It’s cultural to bring the fruits of my olive trees to the mill, launches Michel before recording his daily intake: 129 kg of picholines. For a month, I have brought at least 300 kg between the eight olive trees of my father-in-law and my eight. I have about 100 kg left to pick! ” That is the equivalent of 40 to 45 liters of olive oil that he will come to recover at the end of December.
Magali and Francis own 230 olive trees in Bouillargues. “It’s family-run. When I was little, I was already helping my grandfather and my father to pick the olives to bring them to the mill”, says Magali.
Professional olive groves or family olive groves, the picking takes place between the end of October and mid-December.
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The mills are open from late October to mid-December. “Some prefer to start picking early, because of their schedule or to avoid the vagaries of the weather “, explains Carole Jeanjean, director of the olive grove. Depending on the variety of the fruit, the resulting oil will be sweeter. In full veraison, when the olive turns from green to purple, the taste and aroma will be more powerful on the palate.
We have 1,500 customers, individuals, olive growers and semi-professionals alike
The family business Jeanjean planted its first fruit trees in 1996. It produces its organic oil, including two labeled PDO olive-de-nîmes oil.
Carole and Fabien Jeanjean at the Moulin des Costières olive grove.
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In recent years, the couple have noticed a real enthusiasm for the harvest of individuals and the contribution to the mill. “We have 1,500 customers, individuals, olive growers and semi-professionals alike, indicates Carole Jeanjean. Each can make several contributions. “
Hélène Lasserre, Director of Conservation and Research at France Olive: “An average year”
Halfway through, how is the olive harvest shaping up this year?
It’s an average year, better than we thought, due to the April 8 freeze. We are favorably surprised.
What influence does climate change have on this fruit tree?
Global warming makes winters milder and the olive tree has an increased earliness, early vegetative growth and flowering. The tree must adapt and cope with spring frosts, it has new pathogenic emergencies.
The French olive sector is the only one to bring together professionals and amateurs. How many are there in the Gard?
We are impatiently awaiting the 2020 consolidation of the olive sector. The traceability of olive growers is very complex. It is difficult to list the PDO olive-oil-de-nîmes PDO olive growers for the Gard because the PDO geographical area covers part of the Gard, excluding the Gard Rhodanien and the Cévennes and part of the Hérault. And not all amateurs have declared their plots. Historically, before the 1956 frost episode, Gard was the leading French department in terms of surface area and olive growers.
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Extract its oil with less than 50 kg of olives
The berries of Michel, Magali and Francis and many others will then be stripped, stored (less than 24 hours) in numbered common boxes. Then they will be washed and crushed with the kernel, “a natural preservative “. They will then be mixed for cold extraction.
The olive paste thus obtained will be sent to the decanter to separate the solid and the liquids into three fractions: the pomace (residues and fragments of cores) will be used to heat the 1,600 m² of the company; the vegetable waters (vegetation water) will be spread as natural fertilizer on the 10,000 feet of olive trees of the 30 ha of the property; oil will be weighed and stored in stainless steel tanks while waiting to be bottled. Everyone will come and collect their quantity of green gold from the common press at the end of December. Here, a contribution of 300 kg is necessary to extract its own oil.
At the Bouviers mill, in Gallician, Loïc Lossois, farmer and miller, is equipped with a small mill: “The machine technically makes it possible to isolate a supply of less than 50 kg of olives and to return the oil from their olives to everyone, it is a real satisfaction.”
Demonstration of olive tree pruning by Promolive members.
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World Olive Tree Day in Les Halles
The Promolive association, created thirty years ago, aims to promote the olive tree in the Nîmes region and to safeguard family olive growing by helping individuals (non-farmers) who own one or more trees, a family olive grove on their land or in their garden.
This year, on the occasion of World Olive Tree Day (JMO), Promolive highlights the positive climatic impacts of the olive tree on the theme “The olive tree is our Amazon!” Friday November 26, at noon, at Passage Guérin, 6, rue des Halles. On the program, activities, introduction to the recognition of the three main flavors of olive oil, discovery of olive oil from Nîmes, Australia, California… Explanations on the origin of the olive tree and presentation of size .
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