Tunisia could become, during the 2025-2026 campaign, the second world producer of olive oil, behind Spain and ahead of Italy. This is what the Financial Times indicates in an article published in early January 2026, discussing one of the most promising seasons in recent years for the North African country.
According to the British daily, Tunisian production is expected between 380,000 and 400,000 tonnes.with sectoral projections of up to 500,000 tonnes, a volume which would allow Tunisia to overtake Italy, affected by several campaigns marked by drought and climatic stress.
THE Financial Times underlines that this performance is based on favorable climatic conditions, in particular better distributed precipitation, as well as on the scale of the Tunisian olive orchard, which has nearly 107 million olive trees spread over approximately 2 million hectares.
The fourth largest producer in the world, according to APIA
A few days earlier, on December 22, 2025, Inji Doggui Hanini, general director of the Agricultural Investment Promotion Agency (APIA), recalled that Tunisia is the fourth world producer of olive oil, referring to rankings established on the basis of multi-year averages.
Speaking at the Saudi-Tunisian Business Forum, she also indicated that 40% of cultivated land in Tunisia is devoted to olive trees and that the country is the second largest exporter of olives in the world, while highlighting investment opportunities in the bottling of olive oil, organic oil and the valorization of agricultural by-products.
A possible one-off change in the ranking
The projections published by the Financial Times concern exclusively the 2025-2026 campaign and reflect an exceptional economic performance, without modifying at this stage the world ranking established over the long term. However, they illustrate Tunisia’s ability to change rank during a favorable season, in a context of weakening European production.
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