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Italian harvest

At a press conference in Rome on 19 November 2003, President of the
ISMEA Arturo Semerari advised that whilst overall production of olive
oil in Italy for the 2003/04 year was down by 4.5% from the previous
year, the quality of the oil is very high with the quantity of extra
virgin to be the highest in the last 5 years.

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EU subsidies

Brussels caps off reform, farmers not olive oil 'subsidised'.

18 Nov 2003


The European Commission has adopted proposals to reform the tobacco,
olive oil, cotton and hops sectors bringing them into line with the
new-look Common Agricultural Policy passed this summer.


EU agriculture chief Franz Fischler unveiled the legal texts on Tuesday
proposing the further introduction of so-called ‘decoupling‚’ a
market-friendly method of severing the link between subsidies and
production.


While olive oil and cotton have been earmarked for ‘partial decoupling’
with producers still to receive 40 per cent of their subsidies under the
classic ‘coupled’ format, tobacco will be subject to a more ruthless
reform with farmers facing a brisk three-year transitional period after
which EU aid will be entirely independent of crop.


The commission has proposed retaining 40 per cent of coupled payments
for olive oil,’ a crop which scores highly on health grounds and for
which the EU is comfortably the global market leader.


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Lebanese olive oil to go global

Product to hit European, US markets by next year


Lebanese olive oil will soon be available on the European and American
markets with improved standards of quality, local and foreign experts
say.

According to the French olive oil expert Jean-Marie Baldassari, 15,000
liters of the local product have already been sold to the France-based
Oliviers and Co., a leading European company of olive oil and its
by-products from all over the Mediterranean.

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