Let's talk about economics.

Our trees are young and this year they produced on average 4kg each.

On the first day of harvesting, I had 10 workers who were costing me
$17.5/hr. In eight hours they managed to hand rake 880kg of olives.
That translates to 158 lit of EVO (very dry year and oil content is
down from 22% to 18%).

At $7 / lit, my income would be $1106, while my harvesting expense
alone is $1400. What about other costs?

As I can not move my grove to one of the developing countries for
picking, I have no option but to leave fruit on the trees or pick
olives myself which would take me about 1500 hours or 180 full days
:-)

When comparing world prices of EVO, one should not forget, that in
Australia, it is impossible to find workers who are happy with
something like $4/ hr , unless government allows migrants on temporary
visas during the harvesting time.

Perhaps I should become more creative with marketing: $7/lit for EVO
plus fuel levy, dry weather levy…..

Frank