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<pre>Steve

I don't want to go on about this as it will become tiresome for many
readers but I have received your economic study and noted with interest
that you say that the price of the olive oil varies between $80 and $140
a case.

If it was in Italy the variation would be due to the quality. The
high quality oil would come from the hills or mountains. The yield would
be lower. There would be a trade off between quality and quantity. The
grower on the plain might get 500 kg per ha at L8,000 while the grower
500 m higher might get 250 kg at L16.000. Does the same variation exist
in California? The percentage oil for the grower on the plain might be
20% and the one on the mountain 15% but the profitability is dependent
on the price by the yield. The extra processing cost for 15% oil are not
a significant part of the equation.

Cheers Brian Chatterton.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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<pre>Brian:

What you are looking at in the study are 3 "Ranging analyses" for two
scenarios: 1) where one grows, processes, sells etc. (pg 16); and 2) where
one simply grows the olives to sell to a processor (pg 19). For #1, we are
ranging price (could be due to oil quality or supply) with oil yield (in
terms of "cases per acre"). The oil prices we use are in the range
prospective growers could expect based on folks in business here (Note
Ridgley Evers, one of the authors, is a relatively long-time olive oil
grower/producer here and helped us with that data). For # 2, we are ranging
raw olive selling price with yields (in terms of tons per acre).

These analyses are extremely valuable to both new and existing growers,
bankers, and appraisers etc. - one can project yield and price to determine
income (loss) for various levels of cost ("operating costs", "cash costs",
or "total costs"). Work sheets like this are essential if one wants to
objectively evaluate a new or existing olive oil grove and/or business - of
course, as mentioned before, to evaluate a venture or project's
profitability, each person has to inject their own figures.

Steve Sibbett
U.C. Farm Advisor
Phone - office 559.733.6486
Mobil 559.280.0666
FAX 559.734.2708

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Chatterton [mailto:tn7685@orvienet.it]
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2000 2:23 AM
To: Olive List
Subject: [OliveOil] olive economics


Steve

I don't want to go on about this as it will become tiresome for many
readers but I have received your economic study and noted with interest
that you say that the price of the olive oil varies between $80 and $140
a case.

If it was in Italy the variation would be due to the quality. The
high quality oil would come from the hills or mountains. The yield would
be lower. There would be a trade off between quality and quantity. The
grower on the plain might get 500 kg per ha at L8,000 while the grower
500 m higher might get 250 kg at L16.000. Does the same variation exist
in California? The percentage oil for the grower on the plain might be
20% and the one on the mountain 15% but the profitability is dependent
on the price by the yield. The extra processing cost for 15% oil are not
a significant part of the equation.

Cheers Brian Chatterton.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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<pre>Hii friends

Costs of hand harvesting of olives makes it nonprofitable in
Israel the same as in Australia

Hand harvesting olives for various types of home pickling is
my only solution for a family size plantation

I find the Israeli clone (easily propagated by cuttings)
Barnea, a perfect cultivar (under my soil and climatical
conditions in central Israel) for a prolific, heavy bearer,
fruit producer in clusters that makes harvest easy. It is an
upright tree and row spacing is two meters by 4-5 meters
between the rows.

It produces from the third year a commercial crop.

I tried bending and trelising it. Finally I have decided to
top it every 2-3 years to a manageable height of 3 meters.
I do not do any further pruning.

I decided to let the older black olives to drop on shade
cloth nets and collect the fruits in winter, half dry them
in coarse salt and sell them (immersed in some soya oil)

The reasons people in Israel produce oil from their olives
are:
a.the olive fruit fly infestation,
b. mechnical harvesting is faster and cheaper but bruises
the fruits
c. sorting fruits for pickling according to size, colour,
hardiness, blemishes for pickling needs expertise

Thus, I think that the choice of an easy clone for harvest
should be considered as the no 1 question before planting

I will be happy to exchange ideas as I studied for my PhD in
Agric at the New England Univ, Armidale, NSW 22 years ago
and I know Australian agriculture quite well

Ariel Shai
Israel
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