Athens: the olive harvest on the sidewalks is in full swing

A stone’s throw from one of the busiest arteries in the suburbs of Athens, agricultural workers engage in an activity so unusual that motorists stop to gaze at them: next to a bus stop, they extend nets on the ground and harvest olives.

With hundreds of olive trees in its streets, the municipal council of Glyfada, a seaside suburb of the Greek capital, had the idea of ​​producing oil, which was then distributed to the most needy. “Here we produce good oil (…), like everywhere in Greece,” Stavros Giakoumakis, the deputy mayor in charge of green spaces, who has overseen the project since its launch in 2014, explains to AFP.

In addition to Glyfada (90,000 inhabitants), several other suburbs of Athens have launched such initiatives. Patras, the major port of the Peloponnese, also got involved, as did Thessaloniki, the country’s second city, this year. “In addition to preventing the loss of these precious fruits, this preserves the olive trees and also prevents pedestrians” from slipping on the sidewalks, according to the municipality of the Athens suburb of Alimos in a call for volunteers in early November.

A liter of olive oil, a staple of the Mediterranean diet for centuries, today costs between 9 and 18 euros in Greek supermarkets. The Glyfada harvest, estimated at around one tonne of olives this year – enough to produce around 150 liters of oil – is donated to associations helping people in difficulty. “If all municipalities did the same thing, vulnerable families would have enough olive oil for the whole year,” assures Stavros Giakoumakis.

Along with Spain and Italy, Greece is a major producer of olive oil in the European Union. It has the highest annual consumption per capita among the Twenty-Seven, around 12 kilos per person, according to EU data.

The oil produced with the street olives of Glyfada has a tangy taste and stings the throat, both signs of purity. But experts say produce grown in urban areas should be specifically tested for harmful chemicals.

The Scientific Society of Olive Encyclopedists (4E) believes that this “urban” olive oil is “loaded with pollutants which, in high concentrations, constitute dangerous chemicals”. Mineral aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) are of particular concern because, according to the European Food Safety Authority, they can cause cancer.

“Olive trees in areas where the atmosphere is polluted by exhaust gases may contain an increased amount of MOAH in the fruit and consequently also in the olive oil,” explains Constantinos Demopoulos, member of the 4E group and professor emeritus in biochemistry and food chemistry at the University of Athens.

“The unlabeled olive oil circulating on counters may not have the required composition, not necessarily through malice, but through ignorance,” he maintains. “I would not consume olive oil that has not been analyzed, even if it comes from a friend,” he told AFP.

The 4E group laments that municipalities “seem to ignore” the risks and that inspection of street-sourced olive oil generally focuses on acidity and other taste characteristics. Additional testing needed to detect the presence of hydrocarbons must be done in more “specialized” laboratories and is more expensive, he notes. At the Greek state chemical laboratory, acidity tests cost 20 euros. Tests for aromatic hydrocarbons cost between 150 and 180 euros.