Olive Oil Production Returns to Afghanistan
In Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province stand olive groves and a mill planted in a more hopeful era, ruined by decades of war and repeatedly coaxed back to life. Their stop-start story is a quiet lesson in how much more than a tree an olive industry needs.
It surprises people, but Afghanistan grew olives long before it made headlines for other reasons. In the warm, irrigated plains of Nangarhar around Jalalabad, large state olive groves and a processing plant were established decades ago with foreign help, as part of a modernising agricultural push. For a time it worked: the country pressed its own olive oil and even made olive soap. Then came the long years of conflict, and the groves and mill fell into ruin. What has happened since — a series of hopeful restarts, often backed by outside donors — is the real story.
Why olives were planted here
The choice was not romantic; it was agronomic. The Nangarhar plains are hot and, crucially, irrigated by canal, and the olive is a drought-hardy tree that rewards even modest water. Planting olives promised a durable cash crop, local edible oil, and by-products like soap — a way to build rural industry on land that suited the tree. It was, in its day, exactly the kind of sensible import-substitution logic that draws dry countries to the olive again and again.
What war does to a grove
An olive tree is famously tough — it can be cut to the ground and resprout, and some live for centuries. But an olive industry is fragile. It needs steady irrigation, pruning every year, a working mill, trained hands, roads to move fruit, and buyers at the end. War severs all of that. Neglected groves go wild and unproductive; a looted or broken mill has no quick replacement; the skilled workers scatter. The trees may survive where the industry cannot, which is why revival always starts almost from scratch.
The hard part of any restart
Rebuilding the mill is the easy, photogenic bit — a donor funds machinery, a ribbon is cut. The hard part is everything around it: pruning years of neglect out of the trees, training millers and graders, running the plant more than the few weeks a year olives are pressed, and finding a market in a country with no olive-oil habit. One recurring idea — using the same equipment to process other crops out of season — is a shrewd response to the brutal economics of a mill that would otherwise sit idle most of the year. Whether a fragile revival holds depends on that unglamorous groundwork, not the opening ceremony.
| Where | Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan, around Jalalabad |
|---|---|
| Why there | Hot, canal-irrigated plains suited to a drought-hardy tree |
| Origins | State groves and a mill established decades ago with foreign aid |
| Products | Olive oil and olive soap |
| What broke it | Long conflict; neglected groves and a ruined mill |
| The revival | Donor-backed restarts; success rests on skills and markets, not machinery |
What to take from it
- The tree survives war and neglect; the industry around it does not.
- Nangarhar suited olives because it is hot and irrigated — sound agronomy, not novelty.
- A mill is the easy part; pruning, skills, off-season use and markets are the hard part.
- Judge any revival by the unglamorous groundwork, not the ribbon-cutting.
Afghanistan’s olives: common questions
Does Afghanistan really grow olives?
Yes. Large olive groves and a mill were established decades ago in the warm, irrigated plains of Nangarhar province, around Jalalabad, and have been revived in fits and starts since.
Why were olives planted in Afghanistan?
The Nangarhar plains are hot and canal-irrigated, suiting a drought-hardy tree. Olives promised a durable cash crop, local edible oil, and by-products such as soap.
What destroyed the industry?
Decades of war. The groves went neglected and wild and the mill fell into ruin, scattering the skilled workers an olive industry depends on.
If olive trees are so tough, why is revival hard?
The tree endures, but the industry — irrigation, annual pruning, a working mill, trained hands, roads and buyers — is fragile and must be rebuilt almost from scratch.
Why process other crops in the same plant?
An olive mill runs only a few weeks a year. Using the equipment for other produce out of season improves the harsh economics of a plant that would otherwise sit idle.
Everyone marvels that olive trees survive war, and they do — cut one down and it comes back. But a tree is not an industry. An industry is canals kept flowing, trees pruned every winter, a mill that runs, people who know how to grade oil, and someone to buy it. War kills all of that while the trees stand there, mocking you with their toughness. That is why these revivals keep stalling: rebuilding the mill makes the news, but it is the boring stuff — skills, upkeep, a market — that decides whether Afghan oil flows again.
Drawn from reporting on the Nangarhar olive groves and mill and their post-war revival.