Picking olives with Vita, who has worked in the fields since she was 12, alongside several other jobs she does to feed her family and send her older daughter to university. At this time of the year she organizes teams to harvest olives all across the Valle d’Itria, drawing on her extensive contacts, most of whom are women in a similar situation.
The “future” of olive oil. Super intensive olive harvest open-day at the University of Bari experimental field in Valenzano. Marked by almost complete mechanization and the use of fast-growth varieties (such as Arbequina), super-intensive olive farming is widespread in Spain, the world’s main olive oil producer and Italy’s main competitor.
Eish Kodesh, Judea and Samaria – 17th of January, 2014: Israelis gathered in Eish Kodesh, a small outpost on the hills between Jerusalem and Nablus, to plant trees for the holiday of Tu Bishvat, the Jewish “New Year of the Trees”.
Like every year, people all across the Mediterranean sea embarked upon harvesting olives, as it has been for more than 7,000 years. Among the hills of the Valle d’Itria, in south Italy, most families have their own olives and pick them around November, before they fall off the branches. Usually by time people get around to do it, summer is long gone, turning the harvest in a cold race against the coming rain.