Sharp decline in olive oil production projected

This year’s olive oil production is projected to be drastically reduced, owing not just to previous years’ overproduction, which exhausted the trees, but also to a lack of workhands.

The forecasts that said that this year’s production would reach 50% of last year’s (340,000 tons) now look like an optimistic scenario as the quantity of olive oil produced may fall below 150,000 tons.

“Last year we had high production and at the same time there were no workhands to pick the fruit in time and quickly. At many estates the olives were picked even after the end of January,” says Vassilis Fratzolas, of Olive Oil Seminars. 

The labor shortages have also had a pivotal effect. “The Albanians, whom we used to have as workers, have grown up now and are also looking for workers for their estates or the estates they manage… They too have moved on,” explains Pavlos Kaplanis, an olive grower and mill owner in Messinia.