In short:
Wine grape growers in South Australia are looking for crops, such as olive trees, to diversify their business amid a global wine oversupply.
Super high-density olive trees, which can bear fruit in about two years and can be harvested using vineyard machinery, are in demand because of an olive oil shortage.
What’s next?
One Riverland council is exploring opportunities for an olive oil processing facility to support growers with transitioning crops.
Between rows of old vines in Australia’s biggest wine region, a new crop of olive trees is showing green shoots for an industry in crisis.
Under a grey winter sky, the brown nubs of the vines await pruning ahead of the next vintage in South Australia’s Riverland.
But with some grape growers facing another year of prices below cost of production, Ashley Ratcliff has taken action by planting olive trees in his vineyard.
“It’s all about evolving and the wine industry is really tough at the moment,” he said.
“We could see that olive oil was something that we could sell direct to our consumers, and so we looked at olives as the next offering in our mix.”
The super high-density trees Mr Ratcliff has planted can produce fruit in two years — about half the time of a regular olive tree — and he can keep using his existing vineyard infrastructure and equipment.
The viticulturist, whose business grows about 50 grape varieties, said he had always done things differently and he hoped others will follow suit.
“We’ve got a contract with a producer wholesaler and we’re going to get some of our growers to also plant olives,” he said.
“Some of their backgrounds … are Greek and Italian, so they’re quite excited to do something that maybe their grandparents did many years ago.”
Why super high-density olives?
While the world has been drinking less wine, demand for olive oil has grown.
Extreme weather and disease has created a global shortage of olive oil, something grape and bulk wine sales broker Chantel Kitsenkas has seen as an opportunity.
“Australia consumes more than double its own production of olive oil and we’re relying on a lot of imports outside of the Mediterranean,” she said.
“We’re only producing about 2 million litres, so if we can make that up with our own Australian-made products then that would be a great start.”
To cater to this demand, Ms Kistenkas has been working with a local council in the Riverland to find growers willing to swap grapes for olives to produce oil.
“We have ten-year purchase agreements available, so there is long-term stability for those investing, and we’re open to blocks of five hectares or more,” she said.
“We’re definitely not saying rip it all out. Grapes and wine are still our core business, but it’s about adding a layer of security.”
Future-proofing communities
The region has lost almost $600 million in revenue in the last few years due to lower prices for grapes, according to local industry body Riverland Wine.
Last month, the state government provided a $260,000 grant to CCW Co-operative Limited — a wine grape collective with more than 500 members — to support growers with information on diversifying to alternative crops.
With cost-of-living pressures also biting amid the wine downturn, Berri Barmera Council mayor Ella Winnall said diversifying crops was important.
“There’s probably not many people in the community that aren’t either employed by the wine industry or know someone who’s employed in it,” she said.
“When we’re seeing these big global pressures, the impacts run through to the main street and to kids participation in sport — it really does underpin our economy here.”
Ms Winnall said planting super high-density olive trees also addressed the issue of the disposal of treated pine posts from vineyards, which could still be used for this method of farming.
“What we have seen in the past when people have exited the wine industry is that [what] we have leftover is a stockpile of these posts, which can either become council’s problem or a really serious environmental issue,” she said.
Keen to take advantage of the olive oil boom, the council has also been looking into supporting a processing facility, which would bring more manufacturing jobs to the region.
“[The community] is only going to be stronger because we will transition into more resilient crop types,” Ms Winnall said.
“The problem is so complex that the solution will also probably be quite complex, and we don’t think that it’s one silver bullet.
“It will be a lot of one-percenters [sic] that get us there.”
Efficient farming
Australia currently has about 7,000 hectares of super high-density olives across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.
Simon Robb manages a nursery at Irymple in Victoria’s Sunraysia region, one of a handful across the country that grow saplings of the crop.
“Super high-density plantings accounts for 3 per cent of the surface area of olives globally but [they] produce about 36 per cent of extra virgin oil,” he said.
Mr Robb said this method of farming was more efficient and allowed grape growers to keep the same infrastructure.
“There’s approximately a 30 per cent reduction in water, fertiliser and operating costs [plus] it’s highly mechanised,” he said.
“[You] grow a hedge as opposed to a single leader structured tree.
“The fruiting production starts in year two for a super high-density format, realising almost full potential by year four, which is several years earlier than traditional cropping systems.”
Sophin Dahl, who works as a technical officer with Mr Robb, said growers hoping to get on board may face a wait.
“It’s a little bit different than the other crops we do in our nursery because the lead time is between 14 to 18 months,” she said.
But Ms Dahl said with increasing competition for land use, this method of growing food was the future.
“It’s commercialised and practiced so well in Europe, which is a perfect example because obviously countries there are a lot smaller compared to Australia,” she said.
“They have to optimise their yield given the land they have, and that’s the way going forward for many industries.”
