Olive oil, gift of the Gods

It was noon when I first tried baked bread with olive oil last month at a Chaal agricultural complex near Sfax, Tunisia's southern capital, and appreciated how much tastier the bread was because of the oil. That morning I had seen for the first time olive trees on semi-arid farms.

I was on a week-long tour to Tunisia, organized by the International Olive Council, that was timed to coincide with the olive picking season, starting in early November and finishing at the end of January. After that, farmers prune the trees till "birds can fly through them".

Last year, Tunisia was designated by the United States as the source of the second-best olive oil in the world, second only to Spain.

It has an olive-growing tradition that dates back 1,000 years. Phoenicians pioneered the tradition of olive tree growing, later shared by Mediterranean civilizations, such as the Carthaginians, Romans and Arabs, according to Mohammed Hassine Fantar, professor of history and archeology with the University of Tunis.

Tunisia has an olive growing area of 1.7 million hectares, the world's second largest, after Spain. It produces 1 million tons of olives, and 200,000 tons of olive oil a year, 70 percent of which is exported.

Tunisia is the world's fourth largest producer and exporter of olive oil, after Spain, Italy and Greece. The traditional market for Tunisian olive oil was the European Union, but it is expanding into markets such as the US, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Russia.

Tunisian olive farms are applying the latest technology to nurture olive trees, we learned at an olive nursery 15 km from Tunis, allowing trees to start producing oil in three years, rather than 10, as is traditional.

More than 60 different olive varieties were nurtured in the nursery, to maintain diversity; while wild olive trees are pruned so they produce olives.

Irrigation is critical, especially in the south, where rainfall is minimal and computer software is used to determine the best irrigation plan.

The Chaal region has the biggest state-owned olive farms, measuring 32,000 hectares, the largest in Africa. There are around 300,000 olive trees, in addition to 50,000 pistachio trees to cater to the local market, plus animal production.

The traditional Chaal farms depend on the average rainfall of 170 millimeters a year. If there is no rain for two years, there will be no production. They try to preserve water by using tractors to ventilate the soil, cut dead wood, and other methods.

An Olivebioteq seminar at Sfax was held in December, which also featured an exhibition of olive oil from Tunisia, and products made of olive wood. There were several hundred participants from 16 Mediterranean and European countries.

Boubaker Karray, director general of the Institute of Olive in Sfax, says Tunisia looks to provide quality olive oil with traceability and it has placed a big emphasis on developing potential consumers such as China and India.