Less oil and half the price: the numbers the 2026 harvest opens with

The harvest has begun, and in some areas it has been going for three weeks: the heat brought ripening forward and the first mills in south-eastern Sicily fired up in early September, instead of the usual 1 October. It is the right moment to look at the year's numbers, because this year they say something that does not add up at first sight: less oil is being harvested, and the oil is worth far less.

Usually those two move in opposite directions — less product, firm price. Not this year. Understanding why changes how it pays to approach the next six weeks.

How much oil Italy will make

The season just closed was a good one: 325,000 tonnes, 31% more than the year before, according to ISMEA. The 2026/2027 season is instead an "off" year, the low phase of the olive tree's natural alternation: Federolio estimates a 20% drop, that is around 260,000 tonnes. Over the past six years Italian production has swung between roughly 241,000 and 329,000 tonnes: this is not a collapse, it is the tree breathing.

On quality the verdict is the opposite, and unanimous. Federolio's president, Tullio Forcella, speaks of agronomic conditions that point to "a very good campaign"; Coldiretti reports very little olive fly, helped paradoxically by the heat itself. Fewer olives, but healthy ones.

The worst-hit areas are Sicily, southern Calabria and Puglia; Campania and northern Calabria are doing better.

Area by area: the national average describes nobody's grove

On 18 September Coldiretti Puglia photographed a region split in two: Foggia and Taranto at −40%, Brindisi beyond −40%, Gargano −30%, Bari and BAT −20%. And in among those figures, one going the other way: Lecce and Salento at +60%, thanks to the new resistant groves planted after Xylella. Where people replanted, they are harvesting again.

Outside Puglia the picture changes again. Abruzzo expects +30% on 2025 (when it made around 9,000 tonnes), in a region with 42,000 hectares, more than 8 million trees and 293 working mills.

Which is why the "national −20%" should not be used to decide anything: it explains the market, not your grove. The figure that matters is your area's — and above all your own field's.

The first yields, and the heat that misleads

Where milling has started, yields are around 10-11%: that is the figure from the large mills of south-eastern Sicily, the first to open. For reference, mill yield in Italy normally runs between 12 and 18% depending on cultivar, area, season and ripeness. So we are at the low end, which fits a very early start.

Here lies this year's trap: heat brings the colour forward, not the oil. An olive that turns colour through water stress is not a ripe olive, and anyone harvesting on skin colour alone risks milling fruit whose oil is not there yet. In non-irrigated fields shrivelling is already being reported; where there is irrigation, tasting results are good. The serious way to decide is still the maturity index: we explained it, with the scale and the window, in when to harvest olives for a true extra virgin.

The good news is the health of the fruit: in the hot areas there is no trace of the fly, and nights dropping below 23 °C have eased the heat stress during harvesting and processing.

Why the price falls while production drops

The answer is in the warehouses. At 31 July 2026 Italy's ICQRF counted 233,377 tonnes of oil in store, 43.9% more than the year before; Italian extra virgin alone went from 45,200 to 108,299 tonnes, more than double. Puglia holds 31.5% of the whole national stock.

On top of that there is Europe. In July the European Commission put the Union at just under 2.1 million tonnes for 2025/26 — 1.3 million from Spain alone — and forecast a more abundant campaign for 2026/27, thanks to favourable weather at flowering and available water. Meanwhile the European extra virgin price had fallen from 457 euro per 100 kg in December 2025 to 397 euro in early June.

On the Italian markets, at 22 September, ISMEA recorded €6.70/kg in Palermo and Trapani, €4.60 in Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto, €4.55 in Bari, €4.45 in Foggia. The national average at origin in July was €5.12/kg: 46.7% less than July 2025. Abroad, in early August, Andalusia stood at €3.30-3.65/kg and Greece at €3.70-4.10.

For olives there is still no consolidated national quotation; the reference values circulating in late September put Coratina at €0.48-0.60/kg in Puglia and €0.41-0.52/kg between Calabria and Basilicata. At retail, Coldiretti expects the shelf not to go beyond 12 euro a litre this year, against 13-14 in 2025 and 15 in 2024.

The conclusion is uncomfortable but worth saying plainly: your harvest does not set the price of your oil. European stocks and the Spanish crop do. You cannot act on that.

What is left in the grower's hands

If the price is given and the quantity is what it is, two levers remain, and both sit inside your own field.

• Cost per tree. In an off year the trees to be worked are the same, the working days too, but fewer kilos come down: the harvesting cost per kilo rises on its own. The only defence is closing the day with fewer hours and fewer people for the same number of trees — the part decided by method and organisation, not by the market.
• Quality. This year the opportunity is a rare one: healthy fruit, very little fly, a unanimous verdict on expected quality. An extra virgin with real numbers — low acidity, high polyphenols — is the only thing separating your oil from bulk at €4.55/kg. That is where selling a batch and selling a bottle part company.

Both levers pull on the same point: harvest inside the right window and get the olives to the mill within 24 hours. On the first, the ripeness scale is in the article on the four numbers of extra virgin; on the second, preparing the grove and the crew is all in the checklist for the three weeks before. And if you still have to work out how to set your tool for your variety, the differences between cultivars — and which ones hold on hardest — are in the guide to Italian olive cultivars.

One practical note on this early year: with fruit arriving early and unevenly, the setting matters more than usual. On varieties that release easily, a stroke that is too energetic takes away leaves and the year's shoots — that is, the 2027 crop — while on stubborn ones a stroke that is too gentle leaves half the tree and stretches the day. It is worth deciding the setting before you climb the ladder, not on it.

Sources

• ISMEA — 2025/26 production (325,000 t, +31%), quotations at origin by market at 22 September 2026 and the national average for July 2026; structure of the sector (over 1 million hectares, around 620,000 farms, more than 4,200 mills, 51 geographical indications).
• ICQRF — stocks declared at 31 July 2026: 233,377 t in total, 108,299 t of Italian extra virgin.
• Federolio — 2026/2027 production estimate (−20%) and the verdict on quality, 16 September 2026.
• Coldiretti Puglia — province-by-province forecasts, 18 September 2026; Coldiretti Abruzzo — 1 October 2026.
• l'OlivoNews — mills starting up and the first yields in south-eastern Sicily.
• European Commission — EU balance 2025/26 and 2026/27 outlook, 8 July 2026.

The figures on this page stand as at 10 October 2026: the campaign has only just started and the estimates will be revised as it goes. If you want an opinion on setting your tool up for your variety, write to us before you start: assistenza@gardenmac.com, a technician will answer.