Within the scope of the "Olive and Olive Oil Sector National Cluster Strategies Development Project" carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock and TUSSIDE, the last module of the current situation analysis study, "Overseas Technical Review Visit" was carried out in Spain on February 18-20, 2015. The visit, which aimed to analyze the olive and olive oil sector in Spain from a cluster perspective, was attended by the project team of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, TUSSIDE project team and technical committee members consisting of sector and cluster experts.
Within the scope of the study, cooperatives, unions, table olive processing facilities, olive pressing, storage and packaging facilities that can serve as an example for our country were visited in Jaen, Cordoba and Seville, which are the provinces with the highest olive and olive oil production in Spain, interviews were held with producers, operators and administrators and production lines were visited. At the University of Cordoba, academicians specialized in the olive and olive oil sector were informed about the current situation of the sector in Spain and the R&D projects carried out to strengthen the sector, and a sample olive orchard established within the scope of their work was visited. Within the scope of the visit, the World Olive Gene Bank was also examined on site and information was received about its practices and projects.
During the visit, the methods and tools used by Spain to overcome the sectoral problems identified during the visits, in-depth interviews and workshops held in Turkey within the scope of the current situation analysis of the project were analyzed and evaluations were made by the project teams and technical committee members as to whether the approaches they follow and the projects they carry out are applicable in Turkey. The information obtained during the visit was also shared with the sector representatives who came together in the next phase of the project, "Strategy Development Workshop and Logical Framework Meeting" held on March 6-7, 2015, and evaluations were made on how the project could contribute to the strategic modeling phase of the project.
