07 Nov

Forest Fires Destroy Woodlands, Olive Groves In Lebanon

Fires have destroyed dozens of hectares of woodlands across Lebanon, just weeks after earlier forest fires devastated mountainous parts of the country, an army spokesman said Wednesday. “A total of 1,542 dunums (154 hectares) were destroyed on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, in addition to the 807 dunums (81 hectares) burnt on Monday,” the spokesman told […]

07 Nov

Special bottling for Turkish olive oil

By Vahap Munyar, Recent days have witnessed a debate between Turkish olive oil exporters and non-refined olive oil producers regarding imports. Non-refined oil producers oppose the exporters, who want to import cheap Spanish olive oil and export it under their own brand names. Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TİM) President Oğuz Satıcı tried to reconcile the two […]

06 Nov

Victorian olive oil company makes splash

By Britt Smith, A VICTORIAN olive oil company with a Lara estate has won the gong for best exporter at the NAB Agribusiness Awards for Excellence. Boundary Bend Limited trumped four other finalists, dominating across all categories including quality of marketing plan, product development and profitable entry into a new market. Boundary Bend’s chairman Rob […]

05 Nov

Off The Beaten Path: The Wolfskill Olive Ranch

“A tree will produce and produce. You can neglect it, abuse it, forget about it, not water it and it’ll still produce olives,” says Dan Flynn, a U.C. Davis scientist. They stand as immovable sentinels of the past. Many of these giant mission olive trees are almost four stories tall and at nearly a century […]

05 Nov

Lebanon: Chouf residents rush to buy imported olive ‘wood’

By Maher Zeineddine, A new type of “firewood” is flooding the Chouf market this autumn as residents, preparing for the coming winter, rush to buy a Turkish-style composite made primarily from olive pits. According to Kamil Halabi, a Chouf resident, the “‘2007 firewood,’ as we are calling it, is very effective and a money-saver.” “Each […]