Olive oil is overpriced in Morocco. The prices of this widely consumed product have increased by 50% over one year, going from around 90 dirhams per liter at the start of the year to 140 or even 150 dirhams per liter in large cities. This record price increase encourages counterfeiting and speculation around olive oil. Reda Tahiri, a young olive grower, justifies this surge in prices by the drop in yield. “Last year, we had a small olive production. This year, it’s even less. If we don’t have olives, we can’t have oil. It’s a question of availability of the raw material,” he explains to H24info.
Read: Morocco: towards an even sharper rise in olive oil prices
And added: “Last year, it was a question of drought and heat. We had good flowering, but episodes of excessive heat charred the flowers. This year, it was the high temperatures in January and February that prevented the olive tree from entering the vegetative rest phase. Basically, these are the effects of climate change.” The informal sector is also a cause of the rise in prices. “In Morocco, the informal circuit represents the large part of the marketing of olive oil. Generally, people buy almost directly from the producer, via one or two intermediaries at most,” confides Hicham D, an informal distributor.
Read: Morocco forced to import olive oil
To compensate for the surge in olive oil prices, the government announced a series of measures to facilitate the importation of this product. “The government is trying to play on the parameters it can control. Last year, there was a ban on exporting olive oil. This year, it is probably to facilitate its importation. But in both cases, there will be zero impact,” analyzes Reda Tahiri, maintaining that importation will not lower prices “because of the importance of the informal sector. More than 90% of production is sold through unstructured networks.”
Read: Olive oil: soaring prices are causing concern in Morocco
To bring prices down, “it will take enormous quantities for there to be an abundance. It’s practically impossible. The lack of production or the scarcity effect is enormous. We are talking about thousands of tonnes not produced,” says the olive grower who fears difficult times. As solutions, he suggests producing local olive varieties “which are resistant to their environment”, rather than “using imported seeds which produce more, but which consume a lot of water”.
