The students from the 1st General Lyceum of Rafina (Greece) visit an olive field, 2023.
During this visit to a field of olive trees, the students had the opportunity to chat with the owner, Mr. Priftis, an 87 years old man who talked to them about the way those olive trees were planted and cultivated. Initially, the trees were wildly grown and subsequently grafted with olive trees twigs from the Kampa’s estate in Megara. He told them about the vaccination of the trees, a topic that only a small fragment of the students had previously heard about. He also talked to the students about the beehives and the production of honey. He explained that his family used to own around 600 beehives which were transported to different places across the land during the year. This transportation was made by truck and had to be completed during the night, once all the bees had returned to their beehives. Then, they had to reach their destination in the dawn so that the bees could adapt to their new environment. Overall, a fantastic piece of information that the students enjoyed very much !!!
We next visited an olive mill owned by Mr. Ilias Papachristou who talked to the group about the modern process of olive oil production. They learnt about the washing of the olives and removal of leaves and solid particles; the pulping of the olives, and the separation between olive oil and water and removal of olive pips (which would be used afterwards to generat new olive trees). Moreover, the students asked for the reasoning behind the current skyrocketed prices of olive oil in the market. Mr. Papachristou explained that this was the result of a high olive oil demand and a remarkably decreased production, mostly attributed to the climate change. He mentioned the case of Spain, where the olive oil production had plummeted due to the continuous drought in the southern parts of the country.
