16 January 2025

With its Mediterranean climate, Albania boasts some 10 million olive trees growing in otherwise unproductive hilly terrain at relatively low altitudes, mostly along the coast.

Some two million grow inland, in Berat, where olives, grapes and other fruits are a crucial component of the local economy.

Each olive tree can produce up to 70 kg of olives per year; between five and 10 kg yield a litre of oil.

In Albania, most olive production is family-run, meaning there is little accurate data on yields or profits.

The price of olive oil in Europe has risen, as has demand, making exports potentially very lucrative but EU rules on quality means exporting to the bloc is not easy for small family businesses.

Unlike other parts of the country, where some olive groves have been abandoned by Albanians moving abroad, plantations in the countryside around Berat are well cared for by older farmers who climb the steep hills and carry out much of the work by hand given the difficulty of moving heavy machinery.

The trouble begins at harvest time, however.

Olives must be harvested within a few days, before they ripen too much. Harvested too early, they produce less oil. Harvested too late, the oil is not so good.

Finding enough pickers at the right time has become almost impossible, a result of high rates of emigration that have seen the population of Albanian fall to 2.4 million in 2023 from 2.8 million in 2011. Rural areas are worst affected.

Sixty-nine-year-old Ysteak Molitaj, from the village of Molishte, said he had to call on his son to come home from the Greek island of Crete.

“I begged him to come to help,” Molitaj told BIRN. “He works there and his family lives there, but I had to call him because otherwise olives would remain unharvested. There are no more youngsters here; they’ve all gone already.”