Uses

Olive oil is only used for food consumption purposes as it can be infered from its definition: oil exclusively obtained from olives for human consumption.

Pomace obtained from olive oil production may be used for livestock feeding or for oil used in industrial applications. The production of the latter is quite low. In 1999 it accounted for 50,000 tonnes of oil (total olive oil production was 2,5 millon tonnes). Production and consumption for industrial uses are mainly concentrated in Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. Trade in such a product is practically non-existent (6,000 tonnes exported in 1999).

After the extraction of olive-pomace oil the residual is used for livestock feeding.

Olive is also used for table consumption.

The varieties of olives produced for table olives differ from the ones produced for olive oil. Table olives production is equivalent to 7 - 10% of production of olives for oil.

World's olives production has varied during the last ten years between 9 and 15 millions of tonnes. 90 to 95% of this production is used in the production of olive oil and olive-pomace oil.

Olive is mainly used in its processed forms.

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