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<pre>Hello Frank,

This level of prices are amazing and good there are agricultural
employeers able to pay 17.5 US$ an hour for picking olives. If they
pay also social secutiry and income tax and social health price per
hour is very attractive for immigration. I am thinking about it.

In Extremadura (spain) thousands of small agricultores are selling
their olives to the olive mill.

If 1 liter of extra virgin olive oil is sold in the market to the
consumer at 3.2 euros/litter i imagine that they are selling their
olives very cheap.

Spanish government is subsidizing production of olive but i do know
in what size, maybe around 1 euro per kilo of olives.

We pick with our friends our olives in a very un-economically way
but with a lot of fan....

Good luck with production and sales!


Skype: ecofinca


--- In OliveOil@yahoogroups.com, "cfe55" <cfe55@y...> wrote:
> 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
>
>
> --- In OliveOil@yahoogroups.com, "Russell Driver" <tyke@c...>
wrote:
> > Antony Whiting wrote:
> > > Hi Russell,
> > > We are in South Australia too and we harvest olives
> > > from our 150 year old grove for our estate label and
> > > as well we harvest olives from other groves and buy
> > > oil from other growers to produce a blend for our
> > > second label.
> >
> >
> > <snip wonderful posting>
> >
> >
> > Thanks so much for your comments Antony.
> >
> > It's good to hear what is going on out there. At least I know I'm
> acheiving
> > a decent market price.
> > It was only a few years ago that I could see $10 a litre, now
there
> is much
> > more oil on the market - but a huge variance in quality.
> > My grove is only a hobby but I like to think I am seeing a decent
> price for
> > my oil.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Russell
</pre>
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