Coronavirus Deals Another Blow to an Industry Already Reeling

As the death toll from the novel coro­n­avirus mounts around the world, stark mea­sures nec­es­sary to quell the dis­ease have turned a health and human­i­tar­ian cri­sis into an eco­nomic dis­as­ter.

Governments are shut­ting down non-essen­tial work­places, schools, restau­rants and events — any­where peo­ple gather. While such restric­tions have helped slow the spread of the dis­ease, they put a hard stop to the liveli­hood and income of broad swaths of work­ers.

Olive farm­ers and olive oil pro­duc­ers have been hit hard in nearly every region. In Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Tunisia, France, Turkey, Croatia, Lebanon, Syria — places where olive oil pro­duc­tion is a way of life — there is grow­ing despair and uncer­tainty for an indus­try that seemed under attack even before the pan­demic arrived.

Olive oil pro­duc­ers are peo­ple hard­ened by droughts, freezes, fires, rav­ages and a job that never really seems free of calami­ties. Overcoming chal­lenges are rou­tine, and every year brings a new set of con­di­tions to con­front. If they man­age every­thing just right and pro­duce a per­fect prod­uct, it will fetch a price far lower than its true value and almost always less than pro­duc­ers need.

The coro­n­avirus has even these fight­ers rat­tled.

Respondents to an Olive Oil Times sur­vey over the week­end reflected the dev­as­tat­ing impact the cri­sis is hav­ing on all aspects of life on the farm and through­out the sup­ply chains on which they depend.

“We don’t know what will hap­pen after the cri­sis,” said a small Greek pro­ducer who exports mainly to Germany. ​“For now we are wait­ing to see how far our last money lasts.”

Farms at a stand­still

Many grow­ers say they can’t get help tend­ing to the urgent needs of the farm.

“We had trou­ble gath­er­ing work­ers for olive farm­ing, even for out­door jobs. People stay at home despite hav­ing the need for money,” a pro­ducer in Turkey, Mustafa Safa Soydan, said.

“I am prun­ing my olive trees alone in this period because my helpers can­not reach me,” said Debra Carol Kyllingstad Haddock, the owner of Casale Prato delle Coccinelle Olive Estate in Umbria, Italy.

“Like oth­ers in Northern California, we are on manda­tory shel­ter in place,” said Geoff Peters at Showa Farm. ​“This has caused us to get to many deferred tasks and to make prepa­ra­tions for spring such as inspect­ing drip irri­ga­tion and order­ing mate­ri­als for McPhail traps.”

Some farms, how­ever, are so far man­ag­ing to con­tinue with oper­a­tions, reflect­ing the patch­work nature of the global response mea­sures in effect. ​“Restrictions are not apply­ing to olive oil pro­duc­ers or farm­ers in Spain,” reported the pro­pri­etor of Casa del Aguila in Jaén. ​“In our estates, we are work­ing nor­mally,”

Shuttered points of sale

While dozens of respon­dents described the shut­down of their fields, mills and pack­ing processes, there were also the effects of manda­tory restric­tions fur­ther down the chain.

“All the mar­kets and events where I sell are closed, impact­ing 90 per­cent of my income,” said a U.S. dis­trib­u­tor. ​“We have a ship­ment on a boat from Italy. It is sup­posed to clear eas­ily but now it is in limbo slow­ing my sup­ply chain,” said another.

“Our busi­ness is shut down and all employ­ees laid off. It’s hor­ri­ble,” a third American dis­trib­u­tor told us.

“I do fairs and mar­kets. All of these have been shut down so now I am only online. I’ve offered free deliv­ery to those in my area, but it isn’t enough to sus­tain me — rent, mort­gage, sup­plies — it’s tough,” said a California retailer.

“We have 70 per­cent lower sales of our prod­ucts. We can­celed all fairs, tast­ings, and edu­ca­tions,” Marijan Marjanovic, the CEO for Stancija St. Antonio in Croatia, said.

In Canada, Myrna Burlock, who oper­ates Liquid Gold Olive Oils and Vinegars, said, ​“All four of our tast­ing bars, mean­ing our liveli­hood, have been forced to close. At ages 63 and 68, where does one go from here?”

Another Canadian com­pany, Sarafino, has been allowed to stay open, ​“as we are part of the gro­cery sup­ply chain,” they said.

“In Turkey, the tourism sea­son was about to start with hotels mak­ing their deals for olive oil buy­ing,” a farmer in Turkey told us. ​“Now every­thing stopped.”

Some see a call to action, oth­ers hun­ker down

Just as the cri­sis has had vary­ing impacts on the busi­nesses of grow­ers and pro­duc­ers — gen­er­ally rang­ing from severe to out­right par­a­lyz­ing — so are the ways they plan to respond to the new real­ity.

Many of those we polled said they noticed an increase in online sales — whether seen on their own web­sites or in news reports — and there was broad deter­mi­na­tion to shore up dig­i­tal pres­ences, home deliv­ery pro­grams and cus­tomer out­reach ini­tia­tives.

“We have to cre­ate urgently an online store and we have to use this time to do a lot of com­mer­cial fol­low-ups,” said a pro­ducer in Portugal, Pilar Abreu e Lima, ​“and, at the same time, do all the farm­ing work by our­selves.”

In Greece, Maria Anagnostopoulos, said she plans to ​“trans­fer my sales dig­i­tally, both bulk and pack­aged on my own chan­nels and reach out to other e‑commerce part­ners.”

There are lay­offs, missed rent pay­ments and dwin­dling sav­ings. Stocks sit idle in ware­houses and shops, machines pow­ered down in closed mills.

Signs of sol­i­dar­ity, and some res­ig­na­tion

Farmers in Spain fired up their trac­tors last week to help dis­in­fect city streets.

Kathryn Keeler, at Rancho Azul y Oro Olive Farm in California, said she saw a need to help peo­ple sud­denly con­fined to their homes cook healthy meals by post­ing more recipes for their online com­mu­nity.

“Just look at Instagram,” said a California dis­trib­u­tor of Portuguese oils, Bare Foods. ​“Everyone is cook­ing!”

There were calls for gov­ern­ment action now and once the health cri­sis sub­sides and the eco­nomic hard­ships come into sharper focus. And among the responses to our sur­vey, there were expres­sions of hope­less­ness in the face of what might some see as the last straw.

“I am depressed,” a farmer and pro­ducer in Turkey said sim­ply when asked how he was doing.

And there are deep con­cerns for the long-term effects the coro­n­avirus cri­sis will have across the sec­tor. More than one-third of the respon­dents said they were ​“extremely con­cerned” about the last­ing dam­age to their busi­nesses.

Nowhere so far has the sit­u­a­tion been as dire than in Italy, where warn­ings ring out to the rest of the world.

“I see politi­cians in England, France, Germany, USA and Brazil down­play­ing the seri­ous­ness of Covid-19 while we’re try­ing to bury our 5,000 dead,” Debra Kyllingstad Haddock wrote from Umbria. “#stay­ath­ome!”