As price of olive oil soars, chainsaw-wielding thieves target Mediterranean’s century-old trees
Most of the thefts are branches. When an entire tree is cut down, the thieves typically cut it up and load the pieces into a pickup truck, selling the wood to lumber yards or firewood vendors and taking the olives to an oil mill.
“The (robbers) look for heavily loaded branches and they cut them,” said Neilos Papachristou, who runs an olive mill and nearby grove in a fourth-generation family business. “So, not only do they steal our olives, but they cause the tree serious harm. It takes 4-5 years for it to return to normal.”
So is there higher demand for olive oil or was the harvest worse? Or are companies just raising their prices because operating costs are higher?
Worse harvests due to a major drought in the mediterranean. Olives and Trees now get stolen. Costs are also up, so it is a terrbile mixture.
How do you steal an olive tree? I can’t imagine that it’s easy to run around with the root system.
googles
Ah, they’re cutting them down and selling them for wood.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/07/olive-oil-greece-italy-spain-climate-change-theft/3267b48e-7dec-11ee-b5cc-66c30a3bbb91_story.html
Welcome to the new normal, I guess
thank you for the info.