Olive farms and olive oil mills for sale in Argentina and Chile

The olive tree was one of the first plants introduced from Spain to the West Indies, via clogs. However, it failed to acclimatise to the tropical environment.

When Christopher Columbus arrived in America in 1492, he also brought with him hundreds of varieties of species that mixed with the native flora and fauna. The first olive trees came from Seville to the West Indies (Caribbean) and later spread to the rest of the continent. Mr. Juan de Baena, acquired the plants in a place near Seville, and sent them in vats by the Casa de Contratación in 1520. A Royal Decree of August 1531 states: ‘all the masters who go to the Indies shall take with them on their ships the quantity of vine and olive plants they consider necessary, so that no one leaves without taking a certain quantity’.

Later, there were already olive tree plantations in Mexico. Fray Martin managed to propagate this tree in Mexico, by successfully introducing olive trees from Valencia to the port of Veracruz. By the middle of the 17th century, the olive tree had reached its peak of development in Mexico, whose population had increased thanks to obligatory provisions for those who ventured to the American continent from Spain, such as ‘that no one should leave for the new world without carrying some plant material from the tree, products of the green gold’. Some of these specimens still exist in Tuyehuasco.

The Spanish Jesuits propagated the olive tree by cuttings and seeds in North America between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century in the Mexican missions. In 1769, the Franciscan priest Fray Junipero Serra founded the first Californian mission in San Diego de Alcalá and succeeded in founding twenty-one missions as far as Sonoma. These missions produced very good quality oil and the resulting variety was called ‘Mission’.

Much earlier, in 1560, according to the Inca chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, the cultivation of olive trees was successfully introduced in Peru and later in Chile, 30 years after the beginning of the Conquest of the Empire of the Incas or Tawantinsuyo.

The first olive tree plantations were made in Lima in 1560, the olive tree arrived in Peru by the hand of the wealthy Don Antonio de Ribera, who embarked in Seville in 1559, bringing several selected olive tree stakes as a precious cargo. Some of the stakes were stolen and appeared in Chile, where they spread rapidly, giving rise to the olive groves of Valparaíso, in Chile. They were then planted in an orchard in Rimac (today Convento de los Descalzos) by Don Gonzalo Guillen. Later it was propagated in the valleys of Casma and Huarmey. It was also introduced to the southern valleys such as Acarí, Yauca, Camaná, Ilo and the Azapa valley (giving rise to the variety with this name). In the year 1753, there is reference to the cultivation of the olive tree in the Department of Tacna, the orchard of Santa Rosa de Para, the propagation was in the Palos or enclosures of the city of Tacna.

In Chile, the first olive trees were planted in the Pacific area. It was distributed throughout the country by territory, from the northern region to Coquimbo, in the central area from Aconcagua to Maule. Central zone from Aconcagua to Maule and southwards, from Ñuble to La Araucanía. In this way, the varieties introduced from Spain adapted to the different microclimates present throughout the country.

The introduction of the olive tree in Argentina is not well elucidated, one of the theories speaks of its arrival through a military expedition from Chile under the command of Captain Diego de Alvarado, being disseminated throughout the North of the territory, adapting perfectly in different places and especially in Arauco (La Rioja). Testimony of this introduction can be found in the remains of an ancient plantation, where the so-called ‘Olivo de las Ánimas’ is found in Aimogasta, so called because its fruits were used for many years in liturgical rites. In La Rioja, the ‘Historical Olive Tree’ of more than 450 years old of the Arauco variety is still preserved, the only specimen that was saved from the felling ordered by the King of Spain during the 18th century.

In Uruguay, the beginnings of olive cultivation date back to the 1780s, when 250 olive plants were introduced from Buenos Aires. Between 1934 and 1950, 1,000 hectares were planted, the varieties of which came from Spain and Italy.