Kahramanmaraş harvests olives on 112,000 decares and expects 26,000 tonnes, with an oil yield of 1 in 7

In Kahramanmaraş, in southern Türkiye, olives are being harvested this season on 112,000 decares (about 11,200 hectares), and the province expects roughly 26,000 tonnes of crop. The figures were given on 10 November 2026 by the Kahramanmaraş provincial director of agriculture and forestry, Ramazan Bilir. While the harvest continues, growers are taking their olives to the oil mills. The report does not split the crop between table and oil olives; we read the 26,000 tonnes as a fruit tonnage, because the oil yield is described separately.

About 232 kilograms per decare

Dividing 26,000 tonnes by 112,000 decares gives roughly 232 kilograms per decare (our calculation, a blended average across trees of different age and spacing). In December 2024 the same director had said the province expected 6,200 tonnes of table olives and 18,500 tonnes of oil olives, a total of 24,700 tonnes, from 117,000 donum. A donum and a decare are the same unit, so the area has shrunk by about 4.3 percent while the expectation has risen by about 5.3 percent; the per-decare expectation moves from 211 to 232 kilograms. These are expectations for two different seasons, not outcomes.

About 3.2 times the recorded output

The 2025-2026 season on our Kahramanmaraş olive growing page is recorded as follows: 8,029 tonnes of olives (6,022 tonnes for oil and 2,007 tonnes for the table), 1,204 tonnes of olive oil, and 1.93 million bearing trees. Set against that record, 26,000 tonnes is about 3.2 times as much. But 2025-2026 was an off year across Türkiye, and the olive is a tree that swings between heavy and light crops over a two-year cycle. The report does not say how much of the gap comes from the on-year and how much from optimism in the forecast. An expectation and a recorded output should not be weighed on the same scale.

The oil yield is low

Olive oil producer Abdurrahim Kırkgeçit said the crop had not finished ripening, so 1 kilogram of oil is being obtained from 7 kilograms of olives. That is an oil yield of about 14.3 percent. The figures in the December 2024 report implied about 20 percent (3,700 tonnes of oil from 18,500 tonnes of oil olives), and our record for 2025-2026 matches: 1,204 divided by 6,022 is 20.0 percent. The yield quoted this season is therefore lower by about 5.7 percentage points. It is, however, one producer's observation at his own mill, not a provincial season average, and it may change as the harvest advances.

Two calculations for scale. If all 26,000 tonnes went to oil, a 7-to-1 yield would give at most about 3,700 tonnes of oil. If the oil share were about three quarters, as in 2024, the oil would come to roughly 2,800 tonnes. Neither is a forecast; they are conditional products of the figures in the report, which does not give the oil share.

The tin price

The prices Kırkgeçit gave are about 5,000 TL for an 18-20 litre tin of extra virgin and about 4,500 TL for natural virgin. Depending on whether the tin holds 18 or 20 litres, that works out at roughly 250-278 TL per litre for extra virgin and 225-250 TL for natural virgin (our calculation). The report does not say whether this is a producer's ex-mill price or a retail price, nor on what date it applies. The extra virgin registration at the Edremit commodity exchange on 6 November 2026 stands at 273.92 TL per kilogram in our data; that is a single registration, not an average, and it is quoted per kilogram. We do not compare a litre price directly with a kilogram price.

The tree count still does not match

Kırkgeçit said the province has more than 6 million olive trees, that about 4.5 million of them are bearing, and that 150,000 to 200,000 new trees are planted every year. In the speech reported at the opening of the Doğukent plant the number of bearing trees was given as 4 million; in this report it is 4.5 million. In the recorded series the bearing trees number 1.93 million, so the figure in the speech is about 2.3 times as high. We cannot say whether the difference comes from the date of the count, from its scope, or from recent plantings.

What the report does not contain

• The split of the 26,000 tonnes between table and oil olives, and the total oil expected.
• The method and the date used to calculate the crop forecast.
• The sales level to which the tin prices belong.

What to watch

The official outturn published after the season will show how close the expectation came. The second question is the oil yield: does the 7-to-1 ratio change as the harvest moves on, or does it remain the province's figure for this season?