Türkiye’s olive production has hit a record-high of 2.94 million tons, according to Mustafa Tan, head of the National Olive and Olive Oil Council (UZZK).
Speaking to Hurriyet News on Saturday, November 5 Tan said: “We have met the targets which we set 15 years ago. The number of total olive trees have reached 196 million which produced 2.9 million tons of olives.”
He added: “Around 28 million of those trees are yet to yield crops.
“But we have achieved a world record with 735,000 tons of table olives produced.”
According to Tan the crop exceeds that of the other major producers Spain (650,000 tonnes) and Egypt (500,000) tonnes.
Continuing he said the country had met its other major target, which was to become the world’s second largest producer of Olive Oil. This figure has been achieved partly due to the tough climatic conditions experienced by a number of other olive oil producing countries.
“Studies carried out by experts in the country’s four regions between September 8 and 18 for crop estimate concluded that olive oil production will reach 421,000 tons in the 2022-2023 season, which marks the highest figure ever.”
Noting the decline is Spain’s olive oil production due to adverse weather conditions he said that Türkiye has the potential to boost both production and exports significantly.
Spain saw output in 2022 fall by nearly half to 750,000 tonnes whilst Italy and Greece both saw output fall to 300,000 tonnes each.
Tan said that the good conditions and crop had created some storage issues and that the country needed to export the product as soon as possible. Currently production costs in Türkiye are also high according to Tan, and that will be something they need to look at going forward.
Currently production costs are on a par with Italy and Spain, a cause for concern as to whether Türkiye will be able to maintain its olive production volumes.
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