USDA Forecasts Modest Decline in EU Olive Oil Production

Summary

The United States Department of Agriculture pre­dicts a slight decline in European Union olive oil pro­duc­tion for the 2025/26 har­vest, with Spain alone pro­duc­ing 257,588 tons in November. Despite chal­lenges such as pro­longed sum­mer heat­waves, olive oil yields are expected to remain well above his­toric lows, lead­ing to an increase in E.U. olive oil con­sump­tion and exports.

European Union olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to decline slightly in the 2025/26 har­vest while remain­ing well above the aver­age of the pre­vi­ous five years, accord­ing to a crop report pub­lished by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The USDA esti­mates that pro­duc­tion in the 27-mem­ber bloc will fall from 2.107 mil­lion met­ric tons in 2024/25 to 2.055 mil­lion tons in the cur­rent crop year.

Comparable fig­ures appear in European Commission data, which show the bloc’s nine olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries milled 138,266 tons in September and October. Spain alone pro­duced 257,588 tons in November, accord­ing to the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

“Olive oil pro­duc­tion in the E.U. is expected to stay mar­gin­ally below pre­vi­ous sea­son lev­els, as long-awaited fall pre­cip­i­ta­tion only arrived in the sec­ond half of November, leav­ing lit­tle room for ini­tial pro­duc­tion fore­casts to expand,” wrote Marta Guerrero, a senior agri­cul­ture spe­cial­ist at the USDA.

This was par­tic­u­larly evi­dent in Spain, where the USDA fore­casts pro­duc­tion of 1.37 mil­lion tons in 2025/26, broadly in line with esti­mates from the country’s agri­cul­ture min­istry.

The USDA noted that above-aver­age spring rain­fall led to a large fruit load, rais­ing expec­ta­tions early in the sea­son that a record har­vest could be pos­si­ble.

“However, ini­tial favor­able out­put fore­casts were over­shad­owed by pro­longed sum­mer heat­waves and the absence of rain­fall since the begin­ning of fall, par­tic­u­larly in tra­di­tional olive groves with­out irri­ga­tion,” Guerrero wrote.

By the time rain arrived in the sec­ond half of November, there was insuf­fi­cient time for trees to recover, and early pro­jec­tions of 1.9 mil­lion tons were revised down­ward to around 1.3 mil­lion tons.

According to the USDA, olive oil yields are expected to decline by five per­cent in Andalusia, fall 17 per­cent in Castile-La Mancha and increase by five per­cent in Extremadura. In Catalonia, Spain’s fourth-largest pro­duc­ing region, out­put is expected to dou­ble dur­ing the cur­rent crop year.

Further east, the USDA fore­casts Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion at 280,000 tons, exceed­ing last year’s out­put of 250,000 tons but falling short of ear­lier indus­try esti­mates of 300,000 tons.

While aver­age oil yields dou­bled to 20 per­cent, Guerrero cited pro­longed sum­mer drought in Puglia and the spread of the olive fruit fly in cen­tral and north­ern regions as key fac­tors lim­it­ing pro­duc­tion.

“Despite ini­tially favor­able expec­ta­tions, olive trees in Puglia entered autumn under con­sid­er­able hydric stress from pro­longed sum­mer drought, result­ing in unusual fruit drop,” she wrote.

“Calabria shows a good to very good har­vest, emerg­ing as one of the season’s high­lights,” Guerrero added. ​“Sicily’s pro­duc­tion is highly uneven, with some areas report­ing heavy yields and oth­ers far lighter ones.”

“In con­trast, cen­tral and north­ern Italy face a chal­leng­ing year,” she con­tin­ued. ​“After last season’s abun­dant har­vest, trees are enter­ing their nat­ural low-yield cycle, com­pounded by July heat­waves and per­sis­tent olive fly infes­ta­tions.”

In Greece, the USDA fore­cast olive oil pro­duc­tion would decline by 15 per­cent to 210,000 tons, cit­ing a hot, dry sum­mer and wide­spread olive fruit fly pres­sure across major pro­duc­ing regions.

Production is also expected to fall in Portugal, drop­ping from 177,000 tons in 2024/25 to 150,000 tons in the cur­rent har­vest.

“Positive pro­duc­tion expec­ta­tions dri­ven by favor­able alter­nate bear­ing con­di­tions and new plan­ta­tions enter­ing pro­duc­tion were ulti­mately negated by high tem­per­a­tures and dry con­di­tions dur­ing sum­mer and early fall,” Guerrero wrote.

Despite the mod­est decline, final results from the 2025/26 crop year are expected to remain well above the his­toric lows of 2022/23 and 2024/25, when extreme heat and drought severely cur­tailed har­vests in Spain.

As a result, the USDA fore­casts E.U. olive oil con­sump­tion will rise slightly to 1.425 mil­lion tons. Exports are expected to increase to 765,000 tons, while imports are pro­jected to climb to 200,000 tons.

“The pro­duc­tion recov­ery in 2024/25, com­bined with the accel­er­ated pace of exports, has resulted in E.U. export lev­els resem­bling pre-drought years, despite low begin­ning stocks,” Guerrero wrote.