Traditional olive growing system: Strategic alternatives to improve competitiveness

Abstract

In recent years, the competitive situation of the so-called “traditional” cultivation systems has decreased because this is a cultivation system that suffers excessive fragmentation, dispersal and high operation costs. The aim of this work is to determine, through an empirical study, if the use of the modernization and cooperation strategies proposed (such as incremental innovation of traditional olive cultivation system, “shared” cultivation, and finally, the assisted cultivation system) would meaningfully improve the competitiveness of the traditional olive cultivation system. To achieve this objective, data obtained from the filling in of questionnaires has been used and 40 traditional olive farms have been analyzed, 10 farms for each of the strategic alternatives proposed. The statistical analysis of the data obtained allowed us to know the existence of meaningful differences in the net income of those olive tree farmers that develop a traditional growing system as opposed to the rest of cultivations that use the strategies proposed. The results show that the implementation of the here proposed strategic alternatives increase the competitiveness of the traditional cultivation system through the net income of the olive farmer.

Keywords

• competitiveness
• olive cultivation systems
• olive oil
• profitability
• strategies
• traditional olive cultivation