2011 Small Olive Crop

Online, September 23, 2011 (Newswire.com) - The NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service), California Field Office has released the Olive crop production forecast for August. This survey, conducted during the last week of July and the first week of August. The report stated the Olive crop was estimated to be around 65,000 tons; which is down from last year's crop by nearly 67%.

Maurice Penna from M&CP farms in Orland, California predicts the amount to be much lower than the NASS estimates. Maurice made mention of the entire US crop to be less than 20,000 tons. Both Maurice and the NASS agree the weather conditions and last year's large crop affected not only the size of the fruit but the lack of them as well.

M&CP Farms is currently the only Grower in California who processes and packs olives. M&CP Farms started excepting olives on September 6th; fourteen days later, they have already taken in 50 tons of olives. Fresh Olives went on sale on their website www.greatolives.com Saturday, September 17th. Penna was adamant about keeping his prices as low as possible and only raise the price of fresh olives a few dollars over last year's prices. The greatolives.com ecommerce site seems to have lowest prices; this is due to the in-house processing and packing.

Tehama County has declared the olive crop of 2011 a disaster and the US Department of Agriculture has granted it based on weather-related olive losses county Agricultural Commissioner Rick Gurrola informed the Board of Supervisors last week. Assistant Agricultural Commissioner Doug Compton seems to agree with Penna estimating the crop to produce between 20 and 30 percent of a normal crop, though Penna says it will be closer to the 20 percent range; possibly a 47.5 million dollar loss.

"The last five years have horrible crops, with the exception of last year!" Penna said if it were not for his abilities to processing and co-packing he would have to close his doors. So how does he survive during these rough times? Penna has a full line of olives, from spiced olives to Almond stuffed and Blue Cheese stuffed. He also processes Meyers Lemons, Spicy Pickled Green Beans and a range of olive spreads. Penna's Parmesan-Asiago cheese is a wonderful blend of cheese and spices, just the thought of the taste I had has my mouth watering for more.