Farmers believe that the forecasts from other entities condition the drop in the price of table olives.

The agrarian organization Unión de Uniones de Agricultores y Ganaderos has questioned the "reliability" of the table olive estimates disseminated by Interaceituna coinciding with the start of the harvest and with the negotiations between farmers and industries to set the prices for each campaign. Interaceituna counts among its member organizations ASAJA, UPA, COAG, Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias, and Asemesa, which is why it considers "incomprehensible" that entities that "claim to represent and defend" the interests of farmers endorse forecasts that convey to the market "an expectation of abundance and that are subsequently subject to significant corrections." The latest estimate from Interaceituna places the potentially harvestable production for the 2026/27 campaign at 638,490 tons. However, just one day after this figure was released, ASAJA-Sevilla warned that high temperatures, lack of precipitation, and size issues could reduce the amount ultimately destined for harvest by around 15%, leaving it at about 542,000 tons. Unión de Uniones questions that an organization participating in the approval of the estimate warns "immediately afterward" that the actual production could be nearly 100,000 tons lower. In the organization's view, this "contradiction" demonstrates that the figure released by Interaceituna represents "a maximum potential and not the amount of olives that are expected to reach the processing industries," it indicates in a press release. In the previous campaign, 2025/26, another example occurred, in the opinion of Unión de Uniones, as the second advance from Interaceituna initially announced a production of 564,000 tons, but "a few weeks later," the third advance reduced the forecast to 535,150 tons, while subsequent data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food placed production around 503,000 tons. The difference compared to the forecast released at the beginning of the negotiation was approximately 61,000 tons. In 2024/25, "relevant modifications" also occurred between the successive advances. The second estimate estimated 492,000 tons and the third reduced the figure to 468,000 tons. Although the final production ended up being higher, at 533,150 tons, the evolution again demonstrated the "high variability of these estimates and the inconvenience of using them as a precise reference for negotiating prices." Unión de Uniones warns that "the problem does not solely reside in whether the forecasts end up being correct or incorrect." The immediate effect of announcing a "very high" harvest when negotiations begin is "to generate an expectation of excess supply that can weaken the position of farmers and favor a reduction in prices." "It is not reasonable that organizations that claim to represent farmers approve a forecast of 638,490 tons and, practically the next day, one of them acknowledges that the harvest could be 542,000. By then, the message that there will be a lot of olives has already been conveyed to the market," Unión de Uniones points out. The organization believes that ASAJA, UPA, COAG, and Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias must explain "why they endorse these figures and what guarantees they require before approving them." It also demands that the estimates "clearly differentiate" between the olives existing on the trees, the potentially harvestable production, and the quantity that is expected to meet the necessary size and quality conditions to be processed. Unión de Uniones demands that harvest forecasts not be used, directly or indirectly, to condition negotiations or justify prices that do not cover production costs. Farmers must negotiate "based on the reality of the field and the market, not on maximum volumes that can be substantially reduced when prices have already been agreed."