Olive Oil Price Hike Causes Wave of Opportunistic Illegal Loggers, Grove Robbers Outside Athens

A surge of robbers and illegal loggers is targeting olive groves outside of Athens due to yet another increase in olive oil prices.

Olive Groves Outside Athens Robbed

In the serene outskirts of Athens, grower Konstantinos Markou, in an olive grove, unveils a 150-year-old tree stump. Thieves, driven by surging olive oil prices due to drought in Spain, are wreaking havoc. They've resorted to warehouse break-ins, diluting premium oil, and falsifying shipping data in the heartlands of Greece, Spain, and Italy. Worse still, some gangs employ chainsaws to pilfer laden branches and entire trees from unguarded groves.

Olive robbers sometimes outproduce owners, leaving growers grappling with high costs and climate change-induced challenges like warmer winters, flooding, and intense forest fires. Growers in Puglia, Italy, seek a dedicated agricultural police division, while Greek farmers aim to reinstate a rural police unit abolished in 2010. In Spain, a company has developed olive-shaped tracking devices to deter thieves.

These olive groves near Athens hold a tradition dating back to antiquity, with some trees standing for centuries. Most thefts involve branches, but when an entire tree is felled, the culprits cut it into pieces, selling the wood to lumber yards and the olives to oil mills. The Mediterranean's olive wealth is attracting a criminal underbelly, jeopardizing livelihoods and ancient groves.

Illegal Loggers Damaging Olive Trees

Neilos Papachristou, a fourth-generation olive mill owner, reveals that olive robbers target laden branches, causing harm to the trees. Recovery takes 4-5 years. Growers are forced to harvest early, sacrificing yields to protect their trees. Christos Bekas, owning 5,000 olive trees, faced repeated thefts before opting for an early harvest. This has increased the olives needed to produce a kilogram of oil by over 2.5 times compared to last year. Bekas, who has been guarding his fields at night, finds the situation appalling.

Another Olive Oil Price Hike

The global olive oil market, which has seen decades of growth, now faces significant disruption due to a nearly two-year drought in Spain, a major contributor to global supply, accounting for about 40% of the total. This drought is expected to reduce global olive oil production to 2.5 million metric tons in the current crop year, down from 3.4 million in the previous year.

The consequence of this drought is a sharp increase in olive oil prices. Benchmark prices for extra virgin olive oil in Spain, Greece, and Italy surged to 9 euros per pound in September, more than tripling from their 2019 levels. Consumers have felt the impact, with a 1-liter bottle of extra virgin oil in Greece going from $8 last year to as much as $15 this year.

Olive theft has also become a significant issue, with instances of stolen olives and oil being reported in Spain and Greece. In Italy, thieves have become bolder, even targeting tractors and equipment along with olives. The economic damage has prompted calls for increased police protection for farmers and acknowledgment that olive tree-cutting constitutes a felony.