Meet the Man Trying to Transform the Olive Sector in France

Yannick Masmondet is on a mis­sion to diver­sify farm­ers’ incomes by plant­ing new olive groves in France, and farm­ers have been recep­tive.

Masmondet’s team hosts meet­ings with farm­ers look­ing to diver­sify and adapt to mar­ket con­di­tions and cli­mate change. His project, Oil’ive Green is active in every depart­ment in south­ern France.

The idea is not to replace huge areas of already cul­ti­vated land with olive groves, but to grad­u­ally plant in small areas of land, mak­ing the most of the farm­land.- Yannick Masmondet, founder, Oil’ive Green Project

A for­mer wine­maker from Bordeaux, Masmondet moved to Morocco, where he dis­cov­ered olive oil. Ten years later, he returned to France dur­ing the Covid-19 pan­demic and launched the Oil’ive Green Project.

“When Covid-19 arrived, I had to start every­thing from scratch. I responded to a request to take over the man­age­ment of a wine estate in Carcassonne to restruc­ture the vine­yard area,” Masmondet told Olive Oil Times.

See Also:Production Rebound Still Expected in France After Mixed Harvest

“That’s when I real­ized that in France there was no indus­trial olive sec­tor like in Morocco or Spain,” he added. ​“At first, I con­sid­ered start­ing in the wine sec­tor in Carcassonne, but quickly real­ized that although France had some arti­sanal olive oil pro­duc­tion, there was no indus­trial olive oil sec­tor.”

The project has already made a size­able impact, although it is rel­a­tively new.

“The project was launched in March 2023 and has grown quickly because we could see a huge agri­cul­tural cri­sis in France, where the farm­ers are try­ing to diver­sify but have few options to do so,” Masmondet said. ​“There is a prob­lem with wine­mak­ers try­ing to diver­sify also.”

“The aim was to cre­ate a new agri­cul­tural model,” he added. ​“We want to pro­vide farm­ers with a diver­si­fi­ca­tion solu­tion with a secure model. Faced with unpre­dictabil­ity, we real­ized that diver­si­fy­ing the cul­ti­va­tion on farm­ing prop­er­ties could bring income to farm­ers.”

With the rever­sal of the mar­ket in the cognac sec­tor and grow­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in most agri­cul­tural sec­tors, French farm­ers are look­ing for new pro­duc­tion routes to strengthen their bot­tom line.

Former winemaker Yannick Masmondet wants to turn France into a major olive oil producer.

Only last month, in Charente, in the south­west of France, Masmondet’s Oil’ive Green Project pre­sented a meet­ing to farm­ers on crop diver­si­fi­ca­tion. Laëtitia Plumat, was one of them. A wine­maker with 54 hectares, is also eye­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of olive oil pro­duc­tion to diver­sify her income.

“The Oil’ive Green Project signs a con­tract with farm­ers, then works with them to plant olive trees,” Masmondet said. ​“We also sup­port them with mar­ket­ing and the har­vest. Farmers keep own­er­ship of their land, but we guar­an­tee them a profit from olive oil pro­duc­tion every year.”

“In other words, we are linked to the farms through a basic con­tract and do not own equity invest­ments, nor do we oper­ate via a coop­er­a­tive model,” he added. ​“Farmers have con­trol over their farms, while we sup­port them with the com­mer­cial and advi­sory aspects. Because we part­ner with farm­ers and work on their land, this reduces that imme­di­ate over­head cost, mak­ing our project eco­nom­i­cally viable.”

See Also:Climate Change Leads Some Bordeaux Wine Producers to Plant Olives

“The idea is not to replace huge areas of already cul­ti­vated land with olive groves, but to grad­u­ally plant in small areas of land, mak­ing the most of the farm­land,” Masmondet con­tin­ued. ​“Our goal is to bring farm­ers towards greater auton­omy. To do this, we sup­port them through­out the year.”

According to Masmondet, the Oil’ive Green Project has signed with more than 100 farm­ers in dif­fer­ent sec­tors, includ­ing grains, wine and fruit. However, the project faces chal­lenges.

“We get our olive trees from nurs­eries in Spain and Morocco, but it is becom­ing more and more dif­fi­cult to obtain these plants due to scarcity due to drought,” he said. ​“Buying the plants in France would be too expen­sive. It costs €1.60 to €2.50 per plant from Spain or Morocco, but in France, it costs €7.”

Along with plant­ing trees, Masmondet and Oil’ive Green Project are also build­ing two mills in Carcassonne and Bordeaux in prepa­ra­tion for the 2026 har­vest.

Advocates of the program believe France could produce significantly more olive oil with intensive plantings.

“We are also acquir­ing two pieces of land with the help of a joint ven­ture with a Spanish green energy group called Iberdrola,” he said. ​“Together, we aim to cul­ti­vate 50,000 new hectares of olive trees by the end of the decade by installing agri­v­oltaic power plants.”

“This type of power will pro­tect the olive groves and reduce the need for irri­ga­tion since it saves the plants from exces­sive heat through sun expo­sure against drought,” he added.

“I am very opti­mistic about the mar­ket, which has the poten­tial for 90 mil­lion liters for global and domes­tic sale at €15 to €17 per liter,” Masmondet con­cluded. ​“We have a sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket in France, which imports 95 per­cent of its olive con­sump­tion.”