Turkey Expecting Near-Record Olive Oil Production

Turkish olive oil pro­duc­tion is pre­dicted to con­tinue fol­low­ing its upward trend in the 2019/20 crop year.

Producers and offi­cials in the Turkish olive oil sec­tor are expect­ing to see the sec­ond high­est yield in the country’s his­tory, with this year’s crop expected to exceed 200,000 tons for only the third time.

“At the moment every­thing seems ok and I think we will have a yield of around 250,000 tons,” Levent Bilginogulları, the head of the Aegean Exporters Association, told Olive Oil Times.

More con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mates put this year’s yield at 200,000 tons or more.

“We like to talk big,” Chris Dologh, the gen­eral man­ager at Kristal Oil and board mem­ber of the International Olive Council, told Olive Oil Times. ​“But let’s wait and see. I would say [pro­duc­tion will be] at least 200,000 tons.”

“The har­vest expec­ta­tions look good in the field at the moment. The rain helped the trees to cope with the heat­waves,” he added. ​“Fingers crossed, it should be a bet­ter year than the pre­vi­ous, qual­ity and quan­tity-wise.”

Last year, Turkey pro­duced 183,000 tons of olive oil, a dis­ap­point­ment for many after the record-break­ing har­vest of 2016/17 in which 263,000 tons of olive oil were pro­duced.

However, pro­duc­ers will not have to wait much longer to find out what this year’s pro­duc­tion num­bers will look like. In the North Aegean region, in which many of Turkey’s older and more tra­di­tion­ally farmed olive groves are located, the har­vest will begin in the com­ing days.

“This is two weeks ear­lier than the pre­vi­ous year,” Bahar Alan, the co-owner of Nova Vera, told Olive Oil Times. ​“While the olive qual­ity is bet­ter com­pared to last year, the amount of olives varies from region to region.”

Alan expects to pro­duce about 100 tons from his olive groves. He said that while Turkey as a whole is expect­ing a pro­duc­tion increase, mainly fueled by more mod­ern and inten­sive olive groves in the south­west of the coun­try, heavy spring rains fol­lowed by high heat-dam­aged many olive trees in his region.

“In gen­eral the groves located in the south­ern parts of Turkey (Mugla, Antakya, Mersin) are more pro­duc­tive this year, whereas the North Aegean parts of Turkey (mainly Manisa) suf­fered strong rain and high heat dur­ing the bloom­ing period, which led to seri­ous pro­duc­tion losses,” he said.

However, the hot sum­mer means that for sur­viv­ing olives to main­tain their qual­ity, more rain is now needed in the North Aegean region.

“In the areas where no irri­ga­tion is made, the best thing that can hap­pen now is a ​‘nor­mal’ smooth rain, which rarely hap­pens any more due to cli­mate change,” Alan said. ​“One good thing about this sea­son is that in gen­eral, the olive qual­ity is much bet­ter than last year. In case we do not face any extreme con­di­tions, this year we will con­tinue to pro­duce higher qual­ity olive oils.”

Further south of Ayvalık-based Nova Vera, too much rain is not usu­ally the prob­lem for pro­duc­ers. Last year, high heats com­bined with drought-like con­di­tions sig­nif­i­cantly depleted the har­vest. However, cli­matic con­di­tions have been much bet­ter this year.

“We are antic­i­pat­ing this year’s har­vest to be sig­nif­i­cantly stronger than last year,” Merve Doran, the co-owner of Oleamea, told Olive Oil Times. ​“The con­di­tions have been good for olive cul­ti­va­tion, but we expe­ri­enced a hot sum­mer along with ele­vated lev­els of humid­ity.”

Doran expects to pro­duce 60 to 70 tons of organic extra vir­gin olive oil this year. She added that one of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing olive oil pro­duc­ers in her part of south­west­ern Turkey is water short­ages.

“In order to max­i­mize our har­vest, rain in late September or early October would be ben­e­fi­cial,” she said. ​“Rain would cer­tainly help reju­ve­nate the trees to ensure an opti­mal har­vest.”

Doran believes the whole Aegean region of west­ern Turkey will con­tinue to get hot­ter and drier, which means those who are able will need to begin invest­ing in irri­ga­tion sys­tems.

“This type of cli­mate pat­tern has seem­ingly become the new real­ity so we are attempt­ing to adapt to these con­di­tions,” Doran said. ​“In some of our lands, we can irri­gate but oth­ers are located in chal­leng­ing ter­rain, so we have lim­ited options regard­ing water acces­si­bil­ity.”

The fore­cast through­out the Aegean region remains hot and dry, with lit­tle to no rain pre­dicted for September and the major­ity of October. While pro­duc­ers and their olives may not get the respite that rain would bring, opti­mism remains about the upward tra­jec­tory of the sec­tor.