Farmers step up security to protect olive oil stock

On a Monday morning, farmer Spyros Staramos was outside his oil mill in Aitoliko, a town in Western Greece. It would have been just another typical Monday for him if he hadn’t seen that the two locks on his warehouse had been broken. “At first I found a cart on the doorstep that we usually have inside the warehouse, but I thought I had left it outside and forgotten. Then I understood,” he tells Kathimerini.

It seems that the perpetrators found a way to keep the dogs in the yard calm and grabbed three large barrels of olive oil containing a total of 600 liters of the product, valued at around 5,000 euros. The strange thing was, Staramos says, that he also found a peephole in the warehouse, which he speculates that the perpetrators had made before the burglary to see if there was any olive oil inside.

“All the evidence shows that they knew exactly what they were going to remove from the warehouse, so they acted purposefully,” he says.

Although he admits he had heard of several incidents of theft in the area, he had not installed a security system at his mill, as he had not personally been targeted. Now he has contacted a technician to install an alarm and surveillance cameras.

Staramos is not the only one in Aitoliko who found his warehouse emptied. Last January, burglars broke into the warehouse of a 47-year-old man, removing a total of 800 liters of olive oil.

Smart cameras

And as petty thefts, not only of olive oil but also of agricultural tools, have been common in recent years, Alekos Diarkis is one of several olive producers who have already installed a monitoring system at their olive mills. He took the decision after thieves stole 2 tons of olive oil, his machinery, chainsaws and lawnmowers during a break-in at his warehouse in 2018, which cost him 20,000 euros.

“I have now installed smart indoor and outdoor wireless cameras from which I receive a real-time alert if an intruder is detected on my property,” Diarkis tells Kathimerini.

The installation of monitoring systems is now a typical measure for most olive producers in Aitoliko; however, those who produce many tons of oil every year have implemented additional measures to secure their stock.

Producer Vassilis Sadimas, with an annual production of approximately 40 tons of oil and 300 tons of edible olives, has fortified his olive mill in every possible way. He tells Kathimerini that while his crop has never been stolen, thieves have removed irrigation systems, each costing 500-600 euros. “The number one security measure is the cameras. From then on, during the harvest season, we usually have a person patrolling the storage areas at night,” he explains.

With the daily wage for an evening patrol ranging from 40 to 50 euros, this measure is widely used by producers whose warehouses are far from their homes and who cannot visit them often.

In other olive-growing regions, both producers and mill owners have been taking security measures for years, before the major thefts started to occur.

Sleeping in the mill

“We always observe all safety rules. I sleep in the olive oil mill. You don’t leave 200 tons of oil like that,” says Elias Kostopoulos, owner of a mill in Messinia, in the southwestern Peloponnese, adding that he has been doing this for years and not because of the recent jump in the price of olive oil. The olive mill has had security cameras and alarms for years, while he has at least five dogs roaming in the yard.

Kostopoulos says his production is insured but his priority is always to not lose the product.

Producer Christina Stribakou, who together with her brother owns olive groves in Filiatra, western Messinia, and produces olive oil that is exported in its entirety, describes a similar approach. “We are not worried about the thefts. The olive mills we work with have alarms and security cameras. They are as safe as a doctor’s practice,” she tells Kathimerini.

Stribakou would be much more worried if she left the sacks of olives in the field. “We are surrounded by 12 million olive trees. Who can protect you?” she says. In their case, all the olives are transported directly to the olive press after harvest.

In other cases, producers in Messinia have lost part of their harvest to thieves who pick the fruit from the trees at night. There are also producers who sleep in the field, near their produce.

“We used to have rural officers, now this institution has disappeared. At the same time, the country has become impoverished, there is an increase in delinquency and insufficient policing,” Stribakou says.

In Polygyros, a municipality in Central Macedonia, where 37 tons of olive oil was stolen from an agricultural cooperative last year, producers are still worried. “We pick the fruit early before the thefts start and then we store it in the olive mills, which are equipped with security cameras,” says Vasilis Evangelinos, an olive producer in the area.

After last October’s incident, the Agricultural Cooperative Elaiorgia was dissolved and each producer now operates separately. “Some even sleep in the sheds they have in the olive groves. But they are very few.”