As olive oil supply ebbs, fruit theft in Greece has prompted the use of thief-tracking GPS tech on orchards.

For the autumn harvest, farmers have turned to GPS chips resembling olives that they hoist on trees to lure thieves.

The island of Crete and northern Greece have both reported an alarming trend of berry and olive oil pilfering. Early this October, a farmers’ cooperative from the northern peninsula of Halkidiki lost tons of processed olive oil to crooks.

A local cuisine must-have, Greece’s olive oil is slowly but surely acquiring the moniker “liquid gold’ as the cost soars.

It ‘s not just in Greece, however, for globally, a bottle of olive oil costs two times its price in 2022.

Spain toying with a drought

Southern Spain, the world’s olive oil center, has been facing an extended drought since 2022 when production halved to 663,000 tons.

Though production will reach 765,000 tonnes in the 2023-24 season, it will still be 30% below the 2018-2021 averages.

The surprise production gain has seen Andalusia region’s olive oil prices reduce slightly between September and October. According to Mintec’s global price benchmark of October 6, 2023, prices fell from 8.40 EUR ($.8.91) to 8 EUR ($8.48) per liter.

Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, however, projects key regions to lose more than half their production capacities in the 2023-24 period. The Andalusia region, which processes 70% of the nation’s total olive oil, will produce just 40% this season.

Olive outlook in the EU promising but not enough

Production in the European Union will expand by 9% to 1.5 million tonnes, buoyed by the Mediterranean region’s slim gains.

However, the European Commission sees a fast depletion of new stocks due to the low supplies from the 2022-23 season. This means that the 2023-24 harvest will still be a third below the averages of the 2018-2021 period.

Olive oil now a luxury in Greece

Given the supply gap and even as farmers track thieves via GPS, olive oil is becoming a luxury in Greece.

Forecasts already lock the winter price of olive oil at 15 EUR ($15.91) per liter. In Crete, the farm gate price had hit 8.40 EUR ($8.91) a liter by September 25, 2023.

Local farmers lament that the government did not foresee the drop in production or otherwise it could have banned exports. The growers have therefore decided to use their own means to tame the situation.

The use of GPS technology, whose first trial in Spain in 2019 succeeded, is just the beginning.