The Bagging of Olives
The cultivation of olives in Sicily is one of the activities that best lends itself to the conformation of the land; that of olives, mainly used for the production of oil, is one of the few cases in which large farmers are still flanked by small landowners, each with their own needs and peculiarities. What all farmers have in common, however, is the problem of harvesting: as of today, in fact, olive harvesting is the most expensive item in a farmer's budget, reaching 50 percent of the total cost of production and 80 percent of the total labor hours employed. In agriculture, olive harvesting, known as "Abbacchiatura" consists of beating the branches of the affected plants with long sticks so that the now ripe produce hanging on them falls to the ground naturally and fairly immediately. This method, not recommended because it causes damage to the trees, which cannot always be repaired or predicted. In addition to pole "injuries," there are also to be taken into account, the subsequent and resulting parasitic diseases that can incur when a branch or trunk has "open wounds." Today, and already for a few decades, an electric device is also being used. This tool manages to be less injurious and can be chosen as an alternative with the pneumatic harvester, which is a compressed air device.