`In Greece, a New Generation of Aspiring Farmers - Olive Oil Times

In Greece, a New Generation of Aspiring Farmers

By Costas Vasilopoulos
May. 9, 2012 11:08 UTC

They’ve had enough. Pushed by the finan­cial cri­sis and the reces­sion, many big city dwellers in Greece are con­tem­plat­ing mov­ing per­ma­nently to the rural ter­ri­to­ries of the coun­try. According to a gal­lop held by Kapa Research on behalf of the Dimitra project, 51.5 per­cent of those peo­ple intend to enter the olive oil sec­tor and become pro­duc­ers and exporters of stan­dard­ized oil.

The expla­na­tion is quite sim­ple: many of the urban­ites have inher­ited and pos­sess small olive groves which have flour­ished with prac­ti­cally no atten­tion and pro­vide the year’s olive oil for the fam­ily. Before the cri­sis, many thought that look­ing after the small fam­ily land was of no value, but today things have changed. Spending has been dra­mat­i­cally reduced due to the heavy aus­ter­ity mea­sures and fam­ily bud­gets have been sharply reduced. Any addi­tional income is more than wel­come.

Cultivating olive trees is not a highly demand­ing pro­ce­dure — effort is required only at har­vest­ing peri­ods — and it allows farm­ers to have another occu­pa­tion. A month’s work can give the year’s oil and maybe allow for some extra quan­tity to be sold.

Many of the farm­ers-to-be will also turn toward organic cul­ti­va­tion. In fact, they are likely already be apply­ing organic meth­ods with­out know­ing it. The use of fly traps — not chem­i­cals — is the dom­i­nant prac­tice and organic fer­til­izer is already used because of its low cost. And since many of these new farm­ers bear busi­ness, eco­nomic or engi­neer­ing degrees, they can bring new ideas about grow­ing olive trees and extract­ing and export­ing olive oil.

Today’s tur­bu­lent times can lead to unprece­dented phe­nom­ena but com­mon wis­dom says that when things go wrong, look for the pos­i­tive side. The revival of the rural can give extra momen­tum to the olive oil indus­try and espe­cially to the suf­fer­ing branded oil sec­tor.



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