`Greek Prime Minister Pledges to Restore Amfissa Olive Grove - Olive Oil Times

Greek Prime Minister Pledges to Restore Amfissa Olive Grove

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Nov. 30, 2022 14:49 UTC

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime min­is­ter, has pledged to restore the Amfissa olive grove, one of sev­eral agri­cul­tural ter­ri­to­ries of the coun­try that suf­fered exten­sive dam­ages from wild­fires in the sum­mer.

The Amfissa grove, sit­u­ated in cen­tral Greece, is the coun­try’s largest con­tin­u­ously cul­ti­vated olive grove and a hall­mark of the Delphi land­scape.

We aim to trans­form this unique char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Delphi land­scape into a pro­duc­tive olive grove and com­bine the agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion with cul­tural and recre­ational activ­i­ties.- Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greek prime min­is­ter

Thousands of olive trees, mainly of the Protected Designation of Origin-cer­ti­fied Konservolia Amfissis table olive vari­ety, were destroyed by the blaze that broke out in the region last July.

A total of 60,000 olive trees will be planted in the area to replace those that were burned in the fire,” Mitsotakis said dur­ing a visit to the area.

See Also:In Greece, Millers Call for Subsidies to Soften Impact of Rising Costs

The prime min­is­ter added that the iconic olive grove could also fos­ter more activ­i­ties than cul­ti­vat­ing olive trees.

We aim to trans­form this unique char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Delphi land­scape into a pro­duc­tive olive grove and com­bine the agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion with cul­tural and recre­ational activ­i­ties, he said.

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View of the Amfissa olive grove (Photo: Dennis Jarvis via Wikimedia Commons)

According to the prime min­is­ter, the nec­es­sary funds to revive the Amfissa grove have already been secured from both pub­lic and pri­vate sources. Mitsotakis also noted that the olives and olive oil of the Amfissa grove should be pre­mium priced.

It is impos­si­ble for the olive oil and olives pro­duced in the Amfissa grove not to be sold for much more than the oils and olives pro­duced in other groves which don’t have the enor­mous his­tor­i­cal weight of the coun­try’s largest olive grove, which is com­pletely iden­ti­fied with the Delphi land­scape,” he said.

So, we need a brand name, the Sacred Delphi’ or some­thing sim­i­lar, to show pro­duc­ers that there is a future,” Mitsotakis added. There is more added value. Our inten­tion is not to sell our olive oil to Italy in bulk, but to gain the added value our­selves.”

At the same time, the prime min­is­ter sug­gested that the Amfissa olive grove become a lab of inno­va­tion” to seek ways to improve yields in olive oil pro­duc­tion.

We will work with the best,” he said. I had the chance to dis­cuss the mat­ter with the pres­i­dent of Microsoft. I told him to bring Microsoft to the Amfissa grove and see how we can ini­ti­ate inno­v­a­tive actions to increase pro­duc­tiv­ity and reduce our envi­ron­men­tal foot­print in olive oil pro­duc­tion.”

I can say that he was thrilled,” Mitsotakis con­cluded. The big cor­po­ra­tions see the added value in such col­lab­o­ra­tions.”



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