Olive trees were first domesticated in the Levant area, which is the land of modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, around 4000-3000 BCE. The first places to make olive oil an important part of their economy was Egypt and Crete (Mazar, 1992, p. 128). The people who spread this staple of the Eastern Mediterranean to the west were the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians came from the Levant area, but you could often find them outside their homeland, as they were famous for their trade networks and colonies which spanned all over the Mediterranean. It was the Phoenicians who established colonies in Spain, specifically the modern-day Southern Spanish cities of Cádiz and Málaga, and brought the domestication of olive trees and production of olive oil to what is today the Southern Spanish province of Andalusia. However, the transformation of Spain and specifically Andalusia into a key producer of olive oil didn’t fully happen until the Romans took Spain away from the Phoenicians and developed olive oil production on a porto-industrial scale and turned Spain into one of the key olive oil suppliers to Rome. The Romans turned the province of Baetica, which includes modern day Andalusia, into the largest exporter of olive oil to Rome. Roman engineering led to increased yields in the province by improving irrigation and Roman olive presses; olive oil from Baetica was praised for its quality among the Romans and, like in Greece and most Mediterranean countries, was used in medicine, food, and rituals (Butcher, 2003, pp. 98-141). After the fall of Rome, production continued, but trade and exports declined up until the Islamic conquest of Spain and Portugal. 

The Islamic conquest, AKA the Moorish conquest, led to the introduction of significantly more advanced irrigation techniques, such as canals “acequias”, cisterns “aljibes”, and crop rotation (Watson, 1983, p. 34). The Spanish word for oil “aceite”, comes from the Arabic word for olive  oil “az-zayt”, displaying the deep influence the Moors had on Spanish society and language through their revolutionization of olive oil agriculture within Spain (Hitchcock, 2014, p. 88). Agricultural manuals from the time described new processing methods in the pruning, grafting, and pressing of the olives. Many of these methods shaped modern olive oil production. Under Islamic rule, Al-Andalus, which is Andalusia’s namesake and includes the modern day province of Andalusia, regained its status as a key exporter of olive oil again; this time within the Islamic world (Watson, 1983, p. 34). The Christian Reconquista and the new Christian Kingdoms that ruled Spain encouraged olive agriculture and over the next couple of centuries gradually expanded their export market to the Americas, where olive oil became a staple in Spanish colonial diets as well. An interesting note to make is that, because a lot of monasteries kept olive groves, a big part of the olive production was continued and improved in monasteries (Glick, 1970, p. 102). The industrial revolution and railroads expanded Spain's olive oil market to France, Italy, and Britain (Ringrose, 1996, p. 231). Throughout all these developments, Andalusia remained the largest olive oil producing region in Spain. The Spanish Civil War and the Franco era led to a dip in exports; this was followed by Spain’s liberalization and consequent entry into the EU, which led to a massive increase in production and transformed Spain and Andalusia in the heart of global olive oil production with 30-40% of the entire world’s olive oil coming from the province. 

In the first couple years of this graph we can see the more or less stagnant growth during the Franco dictatorship which ended in 1975. The effects of Spain’s entry into the European Union in 1986 can be seen with the rapid growth of olive oil production about 10 years later. The reason production exploded after joining the European Union is because of the implementation of mass mono-cropping agriculture that prioritizes output over everything else. 

When compared to other countries, we can really see the true extent of Spain’s dominance on the olive oil market. The total tonnage of olive oil production that Spain has is more than 4 times the second place olive oil producer (Italy). In terms of absolute change, Spain has almost 10 times more of an increase than the 2nd place most increased absolute change in olive oil production (Morocco). Another aspect to look at is a comparison of Spain in the past to Spain in the present. We can see that Spain and Italy were always on top in the olive oil market and production even back in the 1960s, the difference is in their growth over the last 60 years. While Spain more than quadrupled its olive oil production, Italy’s production decreased. 

This figure shows that the industrialization and mass mono-cropping agriculture policies implemented in Spain have affected the distribution of olive oil mills in Spain. The disparity in the number of olive oil mills shows the complete dominance of Andalusia in relation to the other provinces in regards to olive oil production in Spain. As you can see, Andalusia has more than 3 times the production of the 2nd province with the most olive oil production, so the disparity is quite big. The historical journey of the province of Andalusia that we explored earlier explains why this province out of all of the rest ended up in such a position. 

The picture that these charts paint is the transformation of Andalusia’s and Spain’s subsistence agriculture, that most every country had before industrialization of agriculture and the Green Revolution, into confidently dominating the olive oil market through an explosion in production by means of mass mono-cropping agriculture. In a documentary about Andalusia, a soil specialist whose family are natives of the provinces recounts how this agricultural transformation has changed the use of olive trees within society: “The olive tree for them, for that generation and the ones before, meant much more than just oil production, everything in the olive tree was a source of income. For example, with the oil of low quality, you used to make soap; with the trunk and the large branches, you could make small pieces of furniture. With the rest of the wood, fuel, olive groves were also places where you took animals to graze” (Infobase, 2019, 6:00-8:00). From this quote we can see how the market framework imposed by the European Union onto the subsistence agriculture of the locals changed the way people in the region interact with olive trees; now they are seen as mainly existing and being grown for the sake of oil production. 

However, it is this same market framework which brought the exponential growth of olive trees productivity to the region. The new technology and skilled labor that the European Union has developed in the region geared towards olive oil production has also greatly increased not only the quantity of olive oil, but also the quality of olive oil. This transformation of agriculture could not have come at a better time for the country. This is because the economic stagnation during the Franco era had left the country in an economic crisis after his death. So when Spain joined the European Union and the EU made large investments into agriculture, especially olive plantations, and breathed new life into the economy of Spain it saved them from the economic crisis they were facing. 

This means that the solution is to have vegetation cover the exposed and bare soil in these plantations, as has been done for decades before entry into the EU. This transformation of agricultural land began even before Spain’s entry into the European Union; however, the EU definitely accelerated and encouraged this development. Another reason this was allowed to happen in the first place is because this transformation was done without the involvement of the local agricultural communities. This agricultural transformation has resulted in more frequent and more intense floods because the land is not absorbing as much rainwater as it should be, and the rivers are collecting it instead (Infobase, 2019, 30:00-37:00). 

In the O’odham reading, traditional O’odham farms and farming strategies with social and economic pressures that were worsened by government policy, could not survive the profit seeking forces of the corporate model of farming (Nabhan, 1998, p. 174). In the Andalusian case, small local farmers had been powerless to deny the agricultural giants and their mass mono-cropping olive plantations, because the productivity benefits were simply too profitable for the country to pass up, no matter the risk of desertification. This is without mentioning how beneficial it would be to empower the smallholder farmers in regards to moving towards a more sustainable food system by improving value chains and incomes. The smallholder farmers already have been using the techniques that prevent desertification in their farms for decades, government empowerment would help serve them to improve upon these techniques and better manage their farms to turn away from the mass mono-cropping agriculture of the agricultural giants (Sachs & Ban Ki-Moon, pp. 351-352). The lesson to be learned in regards to this case is that investment and empowerment into smallholder farmers instead of the allowing of development of mass mono-cropping agriculture would be better for the development of sustainable agriculture and less harsh on the environment.