Article by PhD. Dilşen OKTAY ERTEM
Olive trees have always been woven into Anatolia’s soil and imagination.
They are not merely agricultural assets but living archives: symbols of life, wealth, continuity and hope. Nowhere is that continuity more tangible than in Türkiye’s Southeastern region, historically known as Upper Mesopotamia, where the knowledge of olive cultivation and olive oil production carries the weight of centuries.
For those of us who cultivate olive groves and operate family-owned mills, these figures are never abstract. They translate into pruning decisions in winter, irrigation dilemmas in summer, and pricing anxiety during harvest. Volatility is not theoretical. It is lived season by season, orchard by orchard. –
Dilşen (Oktay) Ertem
Over the last two decades, Türkiye has turned this heritage into a strategic ambition. The National Olive and Olive Oil Council (UZZK) set a clear objective: becoming the world’s second-largest olive oil producer. Investments in new plantations and modern processing facilities accelerated that trajectory, pushing the country’s olive tree count to around 202 million and expanding groves across hundreds of thousands of hectares nationwide.
That ambition materialized in the 2024/25 season, when Türkiye reached a provisional olive oil output of 505,000 tonnes, becoming the world’s second-largest producer after Spain. In table olives, the country also climbed to second place with 750,000 tonnes in 2024/25, reinforcing its growing footprint across the Mediterranean basin.
Yet the 2025/26 season reminds the sector of a hard truth: olive production is never only about expansion and rankings. Climate volatility has already reshaped the outlook. According to IOC-linked estimates, Türkiye’s 2025/26 olive oil production is projected to fall to around 290,000 tonnes due to severe drought, even though carryover stocks from the previous season, approximately 145,000 tonnes, may partially cushion supply. In table olives, estimated output is also expected to decline to around 450,000 tonnes.
Domestic forecasts underline both uncertainty and the scale of the stakes. UZZK President Mustafa Tan stated that Türkiye is expected to produce 310,000 tonnes of olive oil and 740,000 tonnes of table olives in the 2025/26 season, while noting that projections may be revised as harvest data becomes clearer. He also described how early-season cold damage and drought pressure eased after regular rainfall in October, causing olives to absorb water rapidly, increase in size, and shift oil yield ratios in ways that vary significantly by region and timing.
At the same time, some market actors anticipate an even sharper contraction. Alper Alhat, President of the Akhisar Commodity Exchange, has suggested that olive oil output could fall below 200,000 tonnes, in the range of 170,000 to 180,000 tonnes, even as quality remains high. The divergence between forecasts is less a contradiction than a portrait of the season itself: uneven rainfall, orchard-to-orchard variability, and a moving target that stabilizes only once the harvest concludes.
If climate has become the sector’s most visible variable, economics and policy have become its most exhausting one.
Rising production costs and tightening financial conditions are squeezing producers, industrialists and exporters simultaneously. In theory, a low-yield year should lift prices. In practice, strict anti-inflation policies and market interventions have distorted price formation to the point that bulk extra virgin olive oil prices in some cases have fallen below production cost. The result is a precarious balance: producers hold inventory to avoid locking in losses, yet delaying sales strains liquidity and access to credit.
Türkiye is becoming a critical supplier of table olives and olive oil worldwide. But the central question is no longer how much the country can produce. It is whether the sector can build resilience against its own volatility.
Weather shocks are challenging enough. When unpredictable policy decisions, financing bottlenecks and pricing distortions are layered on top, the sector is forced to fight on multiple fronts at once. Olive trees are resilient, but they do not reward short-term thinking.
What Türkiye needs now is not another headline about rankings but a stabilizing framework: transparent and predictable trade rules, cost relief and accessible financing for producers, and climate adaptation investments that treat drought and erratic rainfall as structural realities rather than temporary disruptions. If those pillars are strengthened, the country’s olive story can remain what it has long represented at its best: continuity. If they are not, the sector risks turning a symbol of hope into a yearly test of endurance.
As a producer from a family rooted in olive cultivation, managing our own groves and mill, I write this not from distance but from within the harvest itself. From the weighing scales, the pressing lines and the quiet calculations that determine whether resilience will once again be enough.
Sources
-International Olive Council (IOC), Olive Oil Production Forecasts and Sector Statistics,
2025/26 Season, IOC Database, 2025.
-Hurriyet Daily News, “Türkiye overtakes Italy to become world’s second-biggest olive oil
producer,” 2025.
-Anadolu Agency (AA), “Türkiye becomes global key player in table olive, olive oil
production,” 2025.
-Ekonomim, “2025 Zeytin ve Zeytinyağı Rekolte Tahmini Açıklandı,” 2025.
-Turkish Agri News, “Alper Alhat: Olive oil harvest will be around 170–180 thousand tonnes
this year,” 2025.
-Turkish National Olive and Olive Oil Council (UZZK), 2025/26 National Olive and Olive Oil
Harvest Estimate and Evaluation Commission Report, 2025.