Australian Olive Growers Have Good Harvest Despite Drought

Summary

The 2025 olive har­vest in Australia was suc­cess­ful, with high yields and qual­ity reported by farm­ers and millers, despite some regions expe­ri­enc­ing drought con­di­tions. Producers like Cobram Estates and Lauriston Grove are report­ing record-break­ing har­vests and high-qual­ity olive oil, with cli­mate change pos­ing chal­lenges for grow­ers in the face of extreme weather events.

Farmers and millers in Australia are report­ing that the 2025 har­vest con­cluded with sat­is­fac­tory results in terms of yields and high qual­ity.

“We had an ​‘on-year,’ with some parts of the coun­try very, very dry,” Michael Southan, the chief exec­u­tive of the Australian Olive Association (AOA), told Olive Oil Times.

‘On-years’ and ​‘off-years’ refer to the nat­ural alter­nate-bear­ing cycle of the olive tree, in which fruit yields fluc­tu­ate between high and low.

“South Australia was in drought, one of the worst droughts they’ve expe­ri­enced. Those who did not have access to irri­ga­tion in the region most of the time did not get a crop,” Southan said.

For the east­ern states of the coun­try, such as New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, the sea­son unfolded dif­fer­ently.

“There it was still dry, but to a lesser extent, and the yields were sat­is­fy­ing,” Southan said.

According to AOA fig­ures, Australia pro­duced approx­i­mately 13,200 met­ric tons of olive oil in 2024. This year’s har­vest should eas­ily exceed those vol­umes.

Cobram Estates, the largest olive oil pro­ducer in the coun­try, reported pro­cess­ing more than 80,000 tons of olives and pro­duc­ing 14.2 mil­lion liters of olive oil.

As the pre­vi­ous sea­son was an ​‘off-year,’ this har­vest and olive oil pro­duc­tion per­formed sig­nif­i­cantly bet­ter.

“The turnout that pro­duc­ers are see­ing is what we expected, not only in terms of vol­umes. The qual­ity is excel­lent,” Southan said. ​“Of course, it is very early to say, as most of the olive oil is still being racked off and set­tled, so we haven’t seen too many new sea­son olive oils just yet.”

“But from what I’ve heard, those who have been tast­ing the olive oils so far say they are of opti­mal qual­ity,” he added.

In Tasmania, high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers are report­ing their best results.

“The 2025 har­vest was com­pleted at the end of May, and it is a record-break­ing har­vest in terms of yield and vol­ume of extra vir­gin olive oil,” said Marco Linardi, owner of Lauriston Grove.

“The qual­ity is again very high, with some amaz­ing extra vir­gin olive oil,” he added. ​“Our sin­gle-cul­ti­var vari­eties are Frantoio, Manzanillo, Hardys Mammoth and Correggiola, all with unique fla­vors.”

Lauriston Grove was planted three decades ago in south­ern Tasmania. ​“The chal­lenges we faced this sea­son were min­i­mal. We pruned heav­ily after last year’s har­vest, so we were sur­prised by the incred­i­ble yield this sea­son,” Linardi said.

In other areas, rain­fall pat­terns remained man­age­able and help­ful for olive grow­ers.

“If we had some more rain, yields might have been higher, as we prob­a­bly had larger yields in the past,” Southan said. ​“Still, more rain, par­tic­u­larly in sum­mer, brings more issues with pests and dis­eases, which also cause prob­lems with yields.”

While the last har­vest paves the way for higher over­all olive oil pro­duc­tion, cli­mate change and extreme weather events rep­re­sent a grow­ing chal­lenge for many grow­ers.

Peter and Caroline O’Cleary, own­ers of Homeleigh Grove, a small olive farm near Canberra, con­firmed both the good sea­son and the weather impacts.

“Olive oil qual­ity was gen­er­ally good, but milder than usual,” they said. ​“Yield was up on past years, rang­ing around a good 25 per­cent.”

“Our biggest chal­lenge for the har­vest was a severe hail­storm, which stripped a lot of fruit from the trees and bruised olives we intended to pick as table fruit,” the pair added.

According to the lat­est state of the cli­mate report released by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the impacts include increas­ing heat­waves, longer fire sea­sons and more intense rain­fall.

In this con­text, qual­ity farm­ing, irri­ga­tion and other adap­ta­tion mea­sures become increas­ingly cru­cial.

According to AOA, the qual­ity of olive farm­ing is demon­strated in sev­eral ways, start­ing from prun­ing, which helped many grow­ers achieve excel­lent results.

“Some of the trees, par­tic­u­larly those that have been well man­aged and pruned the year before, per­formed very well,” Southan said.

“Areas like the Hunter Valley prob­a­bly had their best year in five years. And they had a wet sum­mer and a wet autumn,” he added, refer­ring to the NSW val­ley north of Sydney, which is also home to renowned vine­yards.

“They even had too much rain, which caused a few issues with har­vesters get­ting bogged or sim­i­lar prob­lems,” Southan con­tin­ued.

According to AOA, the aver­age level of Australian olive oil qual­ity has been ris­ing, with more farm­ers adopt­ing advanced agri­cul­tural approaches and apply­ing best prac­tices.