Azerbaijan Joins Olive Council

Enhanced access to inter­na­tional mar­kets, the stream­lined adop­tion of stan­dard pro­ce­dures, and the imple­men­ta­tion of best farm­ing prac­tices are a few rea­sons why the Azerbaijani olive oil sec­tor cel­e­brates the country’s acces­sion to the International Olive Council (IOC) as its 21^st mem­ber.

According to Vahid Novruzov, the chief exec­u­tive of Agro Food Investments, one of the largest agri­cul­tural hold­ings in the coun­try, inter­est in olive farm­ing is grow­ing in Azerbaijan, with expec­ta­tions that the olive-grow­ing area could dou­ble to 15,000 hectares in the next few years.

“Becoming a mem­ber of the IOC is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for us,” Novruzov told Olive Oil Times. ​“It took more than two years to achieve this goal, which was made pos­si­ble by the sup­port from the Ministry of Agriculture. This mem­ber­ship is impor­tant as it aligns with the goals and aspi­ra­tions of the olive oil indus­try.”

Nestled between Russia and Iran and main­tain­ing close ties with neigh­bor­ing Georgia, the Azerbaijani gov­ern­ment and entre­pre­neurs have sig­nif­i­cantly invested in estab­lish­ing a mod­ern olive oil indus­try in recent years.

“On behalf of the International Olive Council, I am thrilled to wel­come Azerbaijan as our newest mem­ber,” said Jaime Lillo, the IOC’s exec­u­tive direc­tor.

“Azerbaijan, which has par­tic­i­pated as an observer coun­try at the IOC since 2021, has a rich his­tory and tra­di­tions that will surely con­tribute to the IOC’s mis­sion of pro­mot­ing the growth and sus­tain­abil­ity of olive cul­ti­va­tion and trade, pro­tect­ing con­sumers and enhanc­ing their knowl­edge about olive oil’s numer­ous health ben­e­fits,” he added.

George Svanidze, a Georgian entre­pre­neur and for­mer IOC pres­i­dent, con­firmed that the announce­ment is big news for the Azerbaijani olive oil sec­tor.

“We have been in dis­cus­sions with the Azerbaijani gov­ern­ment for sev­eral years, exchang­ing vis­its in Spain and Georgia as olive pro­duc­tion in the coun­try showed excel­lent results,” he said.

Svanidze, whose com­pa­nies and asso­ci­ated farm­ers are also heav­ily invest­ing in estab­lish­ing new olive groves in Georgia, noted that Azerbaijan’s acces­sion to the IOC would facil­i­tate for­eign expert sup­port and qual­ity cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“Our Azerbaijani friends have seen how sig­nif­i­cant the IOC and its experts are with our olive expan­sion projects in Georgia,” he said. ​“Thanks to that, we have planted 1.2 mil­lion olive trees here.”

“Thanks to the IOC sup­port, we are also invest­ing in new tech­nolo­gies and machin­ery and start­ing work on new state-of-the-art olive oil mills,” Svanidze added.

Olive trees have been grow­ing for cen­turies in Azerbaijan, most notably on the Absheron Peninsula, where the favor­able cli­mate con­di­tions prompted the gov­ern­ment to sup­port fur­ther devel­op­ments.

The goal of the lat­est efforts is to reclaim neglected land while also pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for local farm­ers.

“In 2018, our com­pany, Grand Agro, pur­chased approx­i­mately 200 hectares of old olive groves not far from Baku,” Novruzov said. ​“They were dilap­i­dated, in very poor shape, and left to die out. This was the rem­nant of what was once a large col­lec­tive farm.”

The com­pany worked to rein­state the old orchards and plant many new trees.

“In the early years, we learned a lot about orchard man­age­ment, result­ing in about 30 per­cent of our orchards being tra­di­tional, with trees spaced up to five meters apart,” Novruzov said. ​“The rest are inten­sive and super-inten­sive.”

“With mod­ern irri­ga­tion and fer­til­iza­tion, we can now aim to har­vest up to seven or eight tons of olives per hectare,” he added.

The com­pany, the largest olive oil pro­ducer in the coun­try, pro­duced 600 tons of olive oil in 2023, more than 50 per­cent of Azerbaijan’s total pro­duc­tion.

“We aim to pro­duce 1,000 tons in the near future,” Novruzov said. ​“The demand is there, as we export to Spain, Israel, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.”

This olive crop expan­sion is not lim­ited to Azerbaijan and Georgia. ​“There is an ongo­ing process across the entire region,” Svanidze said. ​“We have been in dis­cus­sions with offi­cials in sev­eral coun­tries, and there is a high level of inter­est in sup­port­ing fur­ther invest­ments in olive oil.”

“Georgia and Uzbekistan are already IOC mem­bers. Following Azerbaijan, we fore­see that the Kazakh gov­ern­men­t’s inter­est could lead to devel­op­ing closer ties with the International Olive Council,” he added. ​“Looking ahead, Turkmenistan author­i­ties and farm­ers are also show­ing inter­est.”

According to Svanidze, these coun­tries’ inter­est in devel­op­ing their olive indus­tries coin­cides with the urgent need for the global olive indus­try to adapt to the chang­ing cli­mate.

In a January inter­view with Olive Oil Times, Lillo said one of the IOC’s mis­sions is to expand olive cul­ti­va­tion glob­ally to mit­i­gate the impacts of extreme heat and drought in the Mediterranean on global olive oil sup­plies.

“Even though coun­tries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have cooler cli­mates than Mediterranean coun­tries, many olive vari­eties grow very well here,” Svanidze said.

“Having new pro­duc­ing coun­tries is a strate­gic mis­sion in this sce­nario [of con­sec­u­tive poor har­vests fueled by high tem­per­a­tures and drought], which has caused sky­rock­et­ing prices for olive oil almost every­where,” he added.

Novruzov said that the sit­u­a­tion is chang­ing quickly in Azerbaijan. ​“When we started, Azerbaijan had about 3,800 hectares of olive groves, most of which were in poor con­di­tion,” he said. ​“Now we have more than 7,000 hectares of pro­duc­tive olive orchards.”

According to Svanidze, devel­op­ing a strong olive indus­try might also fos­ter bet­ter under­stand­ing among the involved coun­tries in a region where con­flicts and ten­sions have often hin­dered local efforts.

“Birds bring olive tree branches across the whole world,” Svanidze said, allud­ing to the Biblical dove and the olive branch it brought to Noah as a peace offer­ing.

“When peo­ple see the olive trees they have planted and real­ize how long they can live, it changes their mind­set,” he added. ​“This is a sig­nif­i­cant moti­va­tion for peace and sta­bil­ity world­wide.”