Adana's 282-doctor cooperative opens its own olive oil mill: 60 tonnes a day, 9.5 million lira, 50 per cent grant

Tabipler Tarım Kooperatifi, a cooperative founded by doctors in Adana, has put its own olive oil mill into operation. According to the reports, the plant is in the Sarıçam district, is worth 9.5 million lira, can press 60 tonnes of olives a day and started work this year. It was financed with a 50 per cent grant from the IPARD programme run by the Agriculture and Rural Development Support Institution (TKDK). The reports appeared on 14 November 2026.

The figures at a glance

The reports do not give the grant amount separately. If half of the plant's value is taken as the basis, it comes to about 4.75 million lira; that is our own calculation, not an official figure. Converted at the ECB reference rate of 13 November (1 euro = 55.67 lira), the 9.5 million lira is roughly 170,000 euros. Divided by the daily capacity, the investment works out at about 158,000 lira per tonne of daily capacity.

How the cooperative got here

The chair is Assoc. Prof. Ahmet Rıza Şahin, an infectious diseases specialist at Adana City Hospital. According to the reports the cooperative was founded about three years ago and grew to 282 doctor members. It grows olives, sesame, almonds, wheat, tomatoes, aubergines and peppers; olives and olive oil are its largest line. The reports say it applied to IPARD last year and was accepted after review.

We covered the cooperative earlier in our report on sensors in the olive grove. That report cited an area of 500 decares in İmamoğlu; today's reports mention 2,500 decares belonging to the cooperative and its members in total. The reports do not explain how the two figures relate, so we give both side by side rather than treating one as the other.

Why its own mill

By Şahin's account the reason is quality. He said an olive starts to deteriorate biochemically and microbiologically the moment it leaves the branch, so after harvest it has to be pressed very quickly, before it warms up and spoils. Until now the cooperative had its olives processed at other plants, where conditions were not always what they wanted. How much the wait after harvest matters is explained in our piece on how soon harvested olives must be pressed.

Şahin also said the plant lets them store their product better and has lowered their costs, which in turn showed in their prices. The reports give no figure for how much costs fell.

Open to farmers in the area

The chair's most notable remark is that the mill will not process only the cooperative's own olives. Şahin said farmers still pick olives by hand and pile them in the orchard before taking them to a plant, and that the cooperative would, if needed, send transport to collect olives from the orchard: "Nobody's olives should be left on the tree." He argued that farmers who get better oil earn more.

What the reports leave out

The reports do not say which pressing technology the plant uses, whether outside olives will be charged a fee or an oil share, how much was processed in the first season, or how the cooperative's oil will be sold. Without a service price there is no way to judge the advantage for nearby growers; we compiled how fees are formed in our pressing fee article.

The application process is a separate matter for anyone interested: Şahin said rural development grants bring life to the countryside when used properly and recommended that people look into them. We covered the permit and support side of building a mill in what permits you need to build an olive oil mill, and the route to joining a cooperative in how to join an olive cooperative.