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Olive cultivation dates back more than 6000 years.
Centred in Mediterranean regions, where the majority of the world's
consumption of olive oil and table olives still occurs, agricultural
production and processing serve also an ever-expanding export market
- supplying other parts of Europe, North America and, of course, Australia
and Japan.
Olive farming is generally locked into traditional production methods with less than optimal yields and a high labour content. Existing groves, many of them hundreds of years old, have usually been planted on land of varying topography, inhibiting the use of mechanical harvesting, and largely relying on natural rainfall. |