Olive oil producers turn to tourists to combat costs, extreme weather
Maria Angela Macchia jams a 10-foot pole topped with an electric comb into the upper reaches of a 200-year-old olive tree and revs the engine.
The long-toothed tool, created to extract stubborn fruit from the highest branches, vigorously shakes the crown of the tree, sending a trickle of olives cascading to the green nets below.
To an onlooker, the stream is impressive. But Macchia frowns: The yield is only a fraction of what she got when she shook the same tree the previous year at I Moricci, her 19th century farmhouse on a Tuscan hillside outside of Peccioli, southeast of Pisa.
Extreme rains across Italy in the spring knocked many of the olive flowers off Macchia’s 900 trees before the fruit could form, and she’s expecting this year’s oil output to plummet by about three-quarters.
To help make up some of the earnings shortfall, Macchia has been hosting groups of tourists, organized through the Rotterdam-based vacation planners Triptoscana. The visitors stay on her farm and help pick the olives and explore the region during down time. At the end, they get a half-liter bottle of oil to take home.
The nine-member group I joined representing four nationalities reflects a growing movement in olive oil tourism across the Mediterranean. Travelers get a taste of the work that goes into producing some of the world’s top extra virgin olive oil, while they provide an alternate source of revenue for farmers whose earnings have increasingly suffered from rising production costs and the effects of extreme weather linked to climate change.
“People really take part in the harvest — they get into the rhythm of it,” Macchia says. But, she adds, “it’s a lot of work. Every year is different to the next, and there’s a lot that goes into making the oil that gets to their tables.”
Triptoscana’s five-day tour costs
745 euros, or about $810, including two days of picking and a visit to the frantoio-the place where the bitter-tasting fruit is pressed into the liquid gold that is extra virgin oil.
Macchia benefits from booking apartments at I Moricci that might normally be empty during off-season; she also has free labor helping her harvest the olives. Our group spent about six hours in the field each day; the roughly 1,100 pounds we picked over the two days would yield about 70 liters of oil.
Macchia’s olive shaker — two oversize comb-shaped heads on a telescopic pole powered by a car battery — is as hightech as picking gets at an independent farm like hers. After the tree tops are combed, guests use plastic hand-rakes to scrape the remaining olives off, branch by branch.
To be considered extra virgin oil, the olives must be cold-pressed mechanically and have an acidity of less than 0.8%.
The oil, which can cost upwards of 30 euros, or about $33, a liter, has rich, earthy flavors and often a spicy aftertaste. It’s primarily a condiment used to drizzle on top of soups, fish and vegetables, to mix into salads and sometimes for sautéing.