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The 2008 California olive crop forecast is 65,000 tons, down 49 percent from last year’s crop of 132,500 tons, according to a report Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Bearing acreage is estimated at 31,000 for a yield of 2.1 tons per acre, less than half of last year’s yield [...]

By Cecilia Parsons,
This year’s “off year” table olive crop looks to be thin and scattered statewide.
Olive growers and processors met in July to estimate the size of the 2008 California table olive crop. Members of the California Olive Committee concluded that processors could expect 65,000 tons this season.
Adin Hester, president of the California Olive Committee, [...]

By Stevie Ipsen,
An olive crop worth about $2,400 is reportedly missing after several men, posing as pickers from a local olive oil company, picked and drove away with 6 tons of olives.
According to William Klarenbach, his mother’s 6-acre property on Flournoy Avenue consisted of manzanilla and mission olives that were simply loaded into pickup trucks [...]

Severe summer storms are rolling across the southern and eastern states, in what is being tipped as one of the biggest weather fronts this year.
In South Australia, olive growers near Pinaroo, in South Australia’s Mallee, have sustained considerable losses, and set their crops back at least two years.
Manager of Barkworth Olive Grove, Ken Schutz says [...]

Argentina’s olive and olive oil exports set a new record of 148 million U.S. dollars in the first ten months of this year, local media reported Sunday.
From January to October, Argentina exported 76,300 tons of olives, with a net profit of 98.5 million dollars, Argentine authorities said.
Olive exports and the net profit rose by 18.8 [...]

SOS Cuetara SA said it is targeting a record 1.6 bln tonnes in olive oil production in 2007-2008, reiterating comments made by chairman Jesus Salazar in a recent interview with Thomson Financial News.
In a presentation, SOS Cuetara said it expects olive oil prices to remain stable and competitive in the 2007-2008 season, thanks to an [...]

By Elizabeth Larson,
Moving along at a pace of about 2 acres per hour, Olive Glen Orchards’ new Australian-designed olive harvester began making its way through hundreds of acres of trees last week, as harvesting of olives for olive oil started in the Sacramento Valley.
Patricia Darragh, executive director of the California Olive Oil Council, said the [...]

Students at the California Institute of Technology campus were able to forget rocket science for a day and harvest olives instead.
Students and faculty put away their laptops Friday to climb 16-foot-high ladders, perch in cherry pickers and grab the black and green fruit that would otherwise stain the university’s walkways.
Their goal is to make some [...]