Turkish olive producers set to join international networks

Local olive oil producers set to cooperate with global groups to work together to promote olive oil consumption and to resolve the common problems of the sector players Facing common challenges, Turkish olive oil producers have decided to join hands with international networks. Producers from Edremit Bay have established the Turkish Olive Producing Towns Union in order to join the Mediterranean Olive Oil Cities Network, Re.Co.Med, which works to promote olive oil consumption worldwide.

“I am a fourth generation olive oil producer. We are becoming increasingly poor each year. For the past six years, we have been selling our olives below production cost. Today, coming to this panel, I have seen women going to pick olives. I thought ‘what hard work they are doing.’ I felt sad we could not pay our workers better salaries.” You would think this was a Turkish producer talking, especially when these words are voiced over last weekend, only a day after 18 workers died in a traffic accident while they were traveling to go apple picking. There were 46 people in the van, despite it only having 24 seats, reflecting the sad reality of the effort to cut costs.

“We have been selling olives 35 percent below production costs,” said Soledad Serrano Lopez, a producer from Spain, which is the world’s top producer of olive oil and provides nearly half of global production. Serrano spoke at a panel hosted by the Ayvalık Chamber of Commerce, which organizes festivities at the beginning of the harvest season. Harvests have taken place in this Aegean part of Turkey for thousands of years, but the Chamber of Commerce is just celebrating the 10th year of the festivities.

Yet, each year brings increasingly less to celebrate,...