Promoting the Role of Women in the Olive Sector

Jill Myers is on a mis­sion to pro­mote the role of women in olive grow­ing and olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“My jour­ney with extra vir­gin olive oil began in Italy in 2014, spark­ing a pas­sion that led to my becom­ing a som­me­lier through the Olive Oil Times Education Lab and the International Culinary Center,” Myers said. ​“This expe­ri­ence con­nected me with global extra vir­gin olive oil experts.”

Thereafter, she imported extra vir­gin olive oil from female-led pro­duc­ers, judged inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions and became a respected field expert, focus­ing on sup­port­ing women in the indus­try.

When the Covid-19 pan­demic shut down daily life in her home­town of Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2020, Myers used her spare time to think of how bet­ter to con­nect with the many women she had met across the olive oil world.

“This was a time when we were all stuck at home, and I built this plat­form [Women in Olive Oil] to pro­mote com­mu­ni­ca­tion for women in the sec­tor, to work with each other and sup­port each other,” she said.

The Women in Olive Oil [WiOO] plat­form has helped to rein­force a larger net­work of women in the sec­tor, bring­ing together sim­i­lar plat­forms, includ­ing the Arab Olive Oil Women’s Network, Pandolea, Donne dell’Olio and Women and Olives LATAM.

“The net­work now brings together around 3,000 women from 50 coun­tries that rep­re­sent a wide range of pro­fes­sions within the olive oil indus­try, from farm­ers, mill man­agers, researchers and chemists to retail­ers, importers, exporters, dis­trib­u­tors, mar­keters, soap mak­ers, artists, authors and chefs,” Myers said.

One of the goals of the net­work is to pro­mote female-owned brands and com­pa­nies in a sec­tor that men had tra­di­tion­ally dom­i­nated.

While olive oil sec­tor-spe­cific data are hard to come by, women rep­re­sent about 43 per­cent of the global agri­cul­tural work­force.

“For exam­ple, one of the women in our net­work, a retailer, inten­tion­ally buys and sells women-made olive oils only,” she added. ​“And more retail­ers are sourc­ing female-owned olive oils. It’s also a great net­work for mar­ket­ing female-owned brands.”

Although the olive oil sec­tor is still largely male-dom­i­nated, experts believe the work of female olive farm­ers is not always accounted for in offi­cial sta­tis­tics.

According to Myers, women are instru­men­tal in pass­ing down the knowl­edge of the olive oil-mak­ing process to the next gen­er­a­tion.

“Women tend to hold on to the cul­ture and her­itage and teach chil­dren the recipes and secrets, which then are passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion,” she said. ​“They are essen­tially the cus­to­di­ans of agro-wis­dom.”

Myers has seen how women in France, Jordan, Portugal and Turkey pre­serve tra­di­tional olive farm­ing and oil pro­duc­tion tech­niques.

“Mothers teach their daugh­ters to hand-pick olives,” she said. ​“While in Jordan, the Arab Olive Oil Women’s Network led school work­shops on sus­tain­able olive cul­ti­va­tion.”

“Emmanuel Dechelette pre­sides over an olive oil com­pe­ti­tion, Olio Nuovo Days, judged by chil­dren,” Myers added. ​“She teaches them to dis­cern high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil, instill­ing an appre­ci­a­tion for this craft. These moments show wom­en’s cru­cial role in nur­tur­ing the next gen­er­a­tion’s respect for olive oil tra­di­tion.”

In her efforts to pro­mote the role of women in the olive oil sec­tor, Myers has been work­ing with the International Olive Council.

In 2022, she met exec­u­tive direc­tor Abdellatif Ghedira to dis­cuss oppor­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“Moving for­ward, enti­ties like the IOC could col­lab­o­rate with var­i­ous indus­try groups to pro­vide edu­ca­tional work­shops and sem­i­nars on pol­icy and wom­en’s roles in the olive oil indus­try,” Myers said.

“Women in the sec­tor could estab­lish men­tor­ship pro­grams in part­ner­ship with pro­fes­sional net­works, wom­en’s busi­ness orga­ni­za­tions and agri­cul­tural groups, align­ing with the IOC’s ini­tia­tives for indus­try devel­op­ment,” she added.

In November, the role of women in the olive oil sec­tor took cen­ter stage at the IOC’s World Olive Day cel­e­bra­tion.

Myers said World Olive Day served as an oppor­tu­nity for the wider net­work of asso­ci­a­tions to dis­cuss these poli­cies while under­lin­ing the impor­tance of women in the sec­tor.

“Women have always been deeply involved in man­ag­ing the olive oil value chain,” Imene Trabelsi Trigui, the head of the IOC’s pro­mo­tion depart­ment, told Olive Oil Times in a November 2023 inter­view. ​“Thanks to their knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, they play a cru­cial role in devel­op­ing this impor­tant field and sig­nif­i­cantly impact cur­rent and future gen­er­a­tions.”

Looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, Myers plans to orga­nize more net­work­ing events, work­ing with var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions to cre­ate con­nec­tions for women with indus­try lead­ers.

“Conducting aware­ness cam­paigns on the role of women in pol­icy-mak­ing, part­ner­ing with non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions and advo­cacy groups, lever­ag­ing the IOC’s global plat­form for broader impact is also impor­tant,” she said.

“We should also con­sider imple­ment­ing lead­er­ship pro­grams for women, involv­ing aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions, and tap­ping into other orga­ni­za­tions with aligned inter­ests and other indus­try experts,” Myers added.

Part of this will require work­ing within higher edu­ca­tion and research insti­tutes to study the role of women in the sec­tor and guide pro­mo­tional poli­cies with data.

“Finally, we could look to offer­ing schol­ar­ships and grants for women in part­ner­ship with edu­ca­tional foun­da­tions and phil­an­thropic orga­ni­za­tions,” she said. “[We could also] high­light suc­cess sto­ries, col­lab­o­rat­ing with media net­works and lever­ag­ing part­ner­ships like those with the IOC for wider vis­i­bil­ity.”

With WiOO set to turn four later this year, Myers hopes the orga­ni­za­tion and its many local coun­ter­parts will con­tinue to gain sup­port and amplify wom­en’s voices.

“I hope for more sup­port. For instance, hav­ing more women voiced in pol­i­cy­mak­ing,” Myers con­cluded. ​“It is impor­tant to rec­og­nize the poten­tial of women. So far, the col­lab­o­ra­tion and knowl­edge shar­ing in our net­work has cre­ated pos­i­tive spillover effects into other indus­tries, includ­ing health and beauty.”