On Thursday, in the grounds of Granada's Parque de las Ciencias, delighted tourists and students watched a demonstration of olive trees being harvested. Flails whirred in the branches, clouds of olives thudded to the ground on to canvases spread for their collection. It was a timeless image of an industry whose Iberian roots stretch back to the Phoenicians in the sixth century BC, and in which Spain is the undisputed world leader.

Some 40 kilometres further north, however, in the tiny town of Benalua de las Villas, where the real olive harvest is currently taking place, the mood is decidedly less festive. As far back as 2010, local media reports regularly described the industry as going through the toughest time in its 2,500-year history. And this winter in Andalucia, a region that annually produces a third of the world's olive oil, there is no sign of improvement. Already faced with a glut of olives equivalent to 95 million litres of olive oil, this exceptionally dry winter means the industry is braced for its second bumper crop in a row, which could see a further 285 million litres flood an already saturated market.

Factor in a 70 per cent increase in production costs, the stagnation of prices paid to olive oil farmers in the past 15 years, (olive oil retails at over 10 times as much in supermarkets) and a Spanish economy on the rocks, and the result is clear: after years of overproduction, large sectors of the olive oil industry are going to the wall.