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Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tearthepapersealing .org brought to you by opportunity at work in the ad council today we're going to discuss two unique but ubiquitous fruits that have been part of staple diets around the world for a very long time we're first going to discuss what might be considered the world's only seafaring fruit, and we're going to travel to India to learn about its nomadic origins and what its growing global popularity means for local farmers in Southeast Asia.
Next stop, we meet Whetstone co -founder Melissa Shi in Spain, where she is reintroduced to another familiar fruit that is being harvested green and unripe.
and it is used to produce one of the world's most ancient natural cooking oils.
As we follow these familiar culinary commodities on their journey from their place of origin to our kitchens and plates, we learn about honoring the origins and how market supply and demand are shaping the futures of these crops.
Today on Point of Origin, join us as we dive deep into the World of Culinary Commodities.
It's the Fruit Edition, and we're exploring some of the curious conundrums that they face today.
They can stay alive.
The seed stays alive while it floats.
So it floats on the seas and And it sprouts on whatever coast it lands on, tropical coast it lands on.
In southeastern India, organic farmer and permaculturalist Simrit Mali started noticing that farmers in her area were beginning to experiment with a new type of crop, which historically wasn't grown in the area because it was at too high of an altitude.
I'm in the mountains in the Palani Hills of South India, so it's quite high.
Hi, and I run a co -op with the farmers, with the local farmers in my village.
And in Simrit's farming community, the effects of climate change over the past few years have been immediate and apparent.
Basically, the mountains have been getting warmer and warmer.
And so every year, the coconut kind of climbs higher and higher.
So the coconut can grow at a higher altitude.
and the local farmers in my area were noticing this and where it's colder now it's getting warmer so it's easier for a coconut to grow there basically coconuts are really hardy plants and they'll grow anywhere they have a temperature of higher than 22 degrees celsius so the farmers in my area were starting to experiment growing coconuts in our area trying to predict the future and the fact that it's going to get warmer.
So that's what made me interested in researching where coconuts were from and the kind of conditions they need to grow.
So the origins of coconut are kind of murky and there was a DNA test that was done.
it couldn't pinpoint any one origin there were two strains that were found one was from the indian ocean and the other was on the pacific ocean so it was really divided across two oceans which connects with the fact that the coconut is a seafaring fruit i think it's one of the only ones in the world so the coconut has been traveling on oceans around the world for millennia before humans have been traveling definitely and contrary to popular belief it's we don't have colonizers to thank for the coconuts but yeah so i like to call it a seafood that's interesting so when you say that it's a seafaring fruit
you mean that coconuts without without the help of humans, can propagate on the water.
Is that right? Yeah.
They have been propagating on water.
They can stay alive.
The seed stays alive while it floats.
It also floats. So it floats on the seas and it sprouts on whatever coast it lands on, tropical coast it lands on.
Coconuts are so unique.
Because of their seafaring nature, they can be found throughout the global south, having self -propagated along shorelines over thousands of years, likely long before humans were even around.
Today, they've firmly planted into local and regional cuisines in South Asia, making coconuts foundational and a staple not only in diets, but as a way of life.
In coastal India, the Philippines, and Indonesia, the top producers of coconut in the world, The coconut plant provides more than just meat, milk and oils for food and sustenance.
Because typically an island house would have around four coconut trees and you can build your house and make your clothes and have fuel, water, food, alcohol, everything sorted for you with those trees.
so it's known as the tree of life and it's very easy to have a self -sustainable lifestyle with these four coconuts so it's worshiped basically in india we use a coconut in all our rituals the coconut is cracked before you start anything new or get married or any of have like life's big moments so it's a symbol of fertility in the womb but it's also a symbol of your ego as a as your head so it's like you're sacrificing your ego every time you break a coconut it signifies your your head or your ego basically i sort of like that image it's a pretty intense one the idea of of the coconut representing
your head and then being macheted open to get to the flesh sort of the ultimate sacrifice i guess yeah it is it is so basically they used to sacrifice i don't know if you want to say this to you but they used to sacrifice people and animals in the old days but instead of instead of sacrificing then they break a coconut so the blood and the water coming coming out it's a fresh coconut so it looks like a head wow I will never eat another coconut without thinking about that um that's that's pretty amazing so I want to ask you again or go back to you know the role of the coconuts I guess not really
the role but like the sudden demand over Over the last five years as a consumer, it seems to me, if I had to guess, I would say that the trend of the health conscious types who are drinking coconut water on a daily basis, sometimes around the clock, is coconut water what we have to blame for this sudden spike in demand?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was doing some research. I found that the top players in the global coconut water market is Vita Coco, Coca -Cola and PepsiCo.
So, I mean, they have huge marketing departments and budgets.
So they're shifting to something, I guess, that's more health conscious.
But the whole system is still the same, right?
So I don't know how healthy that actually is.
We may have all noticed and prescribed to the boom in foods, oils and drinks, not to mention supplements, that are derived from the coconut.
Beyond just coconut water, large corporate multinational food producers are scrambling to keep pace with the rapidly growing demand and global taste for all things coconut.
The problem has become because prices around the world have increased so much because it's trendy now.
So people want to make money off it.
Coconut is a very sensitive tree and because of the monocropping and because of the fact that they're probably putting fertilizers and petrochemicals to help the coconut grow, grow the land of the soil is getting depleted and the productivity of the tree has become almost 75 percent less than it was 30 years ago so the major problem around the world is that the countries and plantations that have been supplying coconut around the world are now producing less and less of it which is why the price of coconut oil is is rising has risen almost 300 percent in the past last five years wow and so the cost
of the coconut has gone up as the levels of production have decreased is that what you're saying yeah yeah the demand is way higher than the supply which means that now those four coconuts that a family has on an island they would rather sell it and get money and buy those clothes and fuel from somewhere else instead of using the coconut they have i mean i'm a bit of an extremist there's no real solution to uh the food supply chain around the world and i don't believe that it's wrong for americans or anyone in the global north to use coconut but i just think that just going local is just the easiest
solution so of course now coconuts are not seafaring anymore they don't propagate themselves so they're not flowing on the sea and landing up on coasts and planting themselves so they're being planted in huge monocrop plantations in the areas where they are traditionally grown so So it's kind of getting to the place where palm oil is, where removing large rainforests or natural landscapes to grow coconut because of how much money they get you through export.
It's a twofold thing.
So because of global warming, we can grow more coconuts in higher places and not necessarily just by the coast, but also where they've already traditionally been growing.
they aren't yielding as much coconut as they used to because of the way that they're being grown.
We'll be right back with Whetstone co -founder Melissa Shi.
So, what happened at Chappaquiddick?
Well, it really depends on who you talk to.
There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.
And left a woman behind to drown.
There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News.
It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns.
And in a strange way, right?
Right. That sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's political future.
Ted's political hopes.
Will Ted become president?
Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.
And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.
The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.
So is there a curse?
Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.
Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, everyone. It's Janae, a .k .a.
Cheekys from Cheekys and Chill Podcast. And I'm launching an all new mini podcast series called Sincerely Janae.
Sure, I'm a singer, author, businesswoman and podcaster.
But at the end of the day, I am human.
And that's why I'm sharing my ups and downs with you guys.
hi guys I was sitting here uh recording episodes of Dear Cheekies and Cheekies and Chill and I just had to take a time out and purge my thoughts and feelings here on Sincerely Jhene because I've been so emotional lately you guys whether I'm in my feels I've just had a breakthrough with my therapist or I've just had a really deep conversation with my siblings or I'm in glam getting ready for an award show I'm sharing my most intimate thoughts with you on the podcast you guys know I always always keep it real with you guys, but this time I'm taking it to the next level.
Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Radhida Vloukia, and I'm the host of a Really Good Cry podcast, and I have the opportunity to talk to Vivian too.
She is someone who is definitely changing the way we talk about money.
She is a former Wall Street trader turned personal finance educator, content creator, and now the author of a New York Times best -selling book, Rich AF whether you're trying to get out of debt build wealth negotiate like a boss or just finally understand how to do money right Vivian is the person to ask I think that is terrifying because not understanding your own money and not understanding finances is one of the easiest ways to get in a situation where you don't have options and there is risk for financial abuse use.
You don't have the money to leave. You cannot make choices that take money out of the equation because you don't have it.
And that is why every single woman needs to be good with money.
Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi Mel. Hi Stephen.
Mel is my business partner and the co -founder of Whetstone.
She's in Andalusia, Spain to introduce us to the farmers and the community that have been growing the fruit bearing trees from our next story for many generations.
How are these growers balancing innovating while also preserving tradition and honoring origin, especially in an industry that that many think of as just a commodity.
Here in the sea of trees, we're standing on soil that is a deep brick red.
It's crumbly, clay -like, infused with the color of rust. And when you look up, all that meets the eye is this continuous canopy of leaves that are crowning these knobbly branches and tree trunks of the olive tree.
You don't have to look too closely to see that each canopy is dotted with the unripe greens and darker blacks of maturing fruit.
Just to give you an example, one tree, one olive tree is maybe a case of olive oil only.
One tree is just one case, maybe like 12 500 ml bottles, that's it, 9 liters.
So it takes a lot of trees to make a lot of olive oil.
One lot is usually around 20 ,000 liters, okay?
So you need to be moving quickly.
Today, the morning sky is calm, bright, and luminous, while at the same time being completely blanketed by airy and pillowy clouds.
There's a sky -high cover that is so vast and high up in the atmosphere that makes the sprawling landscape we're standing in feel all at once both smaller and a little more comprehensible, but also grander and of an unimaginable scale.
We're here amongst the olive groves of Olio Estepa with Kyle Davis, an export manager and an expert in regional olive oil production.
We're harvesting olives here in Andalusia and we're meeting one of the 5 ,000 farmers memories that Kyle works with.
It's almost midday but it still feels like dawn is breaking and the day is not quite fully in motion but then stillness is abruptly broken by the sounds of an early harvest in full swing.
So they'll grab the tree with the tractor on the with like kind of a fork on the bottom and then they open up this Batman upside -down umbrella underneath the tree.
They shake the tree with that fork.
All of the olives fall under the umbrella and go right into a hopper.
Once the hopper is full the hopper dumps it into a trailer and once the trailer is full the trailer goes to the mill.
Once the farmer brings a trailer to the mill he's going to first check in with computer screen.
He's going to scan his ID badge.
His ID badge is going to pull up a plot of his land and he's going to indicate on the computer exactly where he just harvested.
So now we have traceability starting to be not just the farmer but the actual plot of land that he just harvested.
He's going to drop his olives.
The olives like we saw being collected is going to have little This ability to trace fruit back to the original plot of land it was harvested from is one of the factors that make Oleostepa so unique.
The farmers' details on its harvest of the day are one of numerable inputs and bits of data that Oleostepa's oils mills carefully monitor.
Each step of the process from when an olive arrives at the mill to the process of cold extraction of oil to testing for different physical and chemical properties.
Storage and bottling makes the process here perhaps one of the most advanced in the world.
The olive groves at Olio Estepa, like the one being harvested here today, have an ancient history dating back more than two millennia.
But it is in more recent history, over the last half century, that agriculture in the region has been revolutionized and technologized, allowing producers like Olio Estepa to access the most up -to -date oil extraction machinery.
At the heart of Olio Estepa's business lies an approach to olive farming that is very different from the models we see around the world.
The cooperative model in Spain is pretty unique.
I don't think that there's any other country in the world that's really has as many cooperatives as Spain and really has such a country that's so open to cooperation, not just on like an agricultural level, but on a on a citizen level.
I mean, there's I mean, people here in Spain, I would say, you know, two thirds of the population at one time or another has been a volunteer or collaborates with NGO.
Spain is a very is a society that likes to cooperate and as such, they have a lot of cooperatives.
And that's very different than countries like Italy, for example, in terms of olive oil.
And there's not there's no there's no real olive oil cooperatives in Italy.
and there's a lot of small farmers or medium -sized farmers that own their own small mill but the the cool thing about having an olive oil cooperative is is that you join the efforts of a large amount of people who individually wouldn't be able to afford an olive mill and you all mill together and you're all kind of in the same boat and you all kind of follow the same philosophy the cool thing with oleostepha is like our philosophy has been quality driven and that's not necessarily the cooperative model across Spain in terms of olive oil.
We have kind of everything.
We have small family farmers that might own only maybe 15 or 20 hectares, and then we have larger farmers who have inherited land over various generations and are farming 1 ,500 hectares.
So we kind of have everything in between, but they're all in the same boat, And they're all fighting for excellence.
So we pay our farmers much more money per kilo of olive than any other cooperative in Spain.
And that's undisputable.
As Kyle explains, their concept is really simple.
example, Oleo -Ostepa overpays farmers for early harvest oil so that growers are incentivized to get the olives off the tree and into the mill as quickly as possible.
And why is it that more unripe and greener olives produce a higher quality oil?
And the most important factor I'd say there is the time of harvest. And so as the olive tree produces a flower and the flower gets pollinated and the olive sprouts on the branch starts off green okay and it's green as it's growing and it's green and then it make it reaches its maximum size and as it reaches its maximum size and as it starts to mature more it turns from green to purple to black okay and then it falls off the tree the maximum fat content of the olive is going to be when it's almost ready to fall off the tree but the amount of polyphenols and the amount of fruit that you're going
to get out of that olive are going to be lower than if you were to harvest it earlier and so that's why you see early harvest and earlier you know on bottles etc harvesting early you get less fat you get less oil out of the olive but the quality is a lot higher.
What exactly are these polyphenols that Kyle is talking about?
They are the micronutrients that give olive oils its so -called superpowers.
Green olives especially are rich in polyphenols that we can only get through certain plant -based foods and together with other dietary reducing agents such as vitamin C and vitamin E are referred to as antioxidants.
Higher polyphenols also increase the shelf life of olive oil but are a key factor in contributing to the most defining and desired flavor factor of high quality olive oil.
bitterness by the way the one and only basic flavor in olive oil is bitterness the rest is aftertaste like all the aromas and tactile sensations like the astringency that dry our our mouth and spiciness that we can feel anywhere in the mouth or maybe in the throat.
This is Alfonso Fernandez.
Something in a kind of joke way, I can say that I'm a priest of olive oil.
So I make believers.
I want to tell for the people to know what is the truth about olive oil and everything that they can learn and enjoy and how to use and how good it's for the health.
of everything, because I hate nationalism on olive oil, even if I'm lucky enough to be talking about olive oil from Spain all over the world.
But, I mean, many of the olive trees that we have, they have been with us longer than many borders that we have too.
We have olive trees with more than 2 ,000, 3 ,000 years old.
Alfonso has devoted himself to sharing knowledge and understanding of olive oil, its history and its cultural heritage here in Spain, and beyond the borders that define his country.
He's what's called an oleologist, the name for an olive oil tasting expert.
Importantly, Alfonso emphasizes that what makes olive oil really unique is not just that it's an ancient product, but that it's a completely all -natural product.
After all, Spanish aciete for oil is derived from Arabic alzayet or olive juice.
It's unlike many of our cooking oils today that go through different refining processes.
But the main thing that I think that everybody will understand quite easily, extra virgin olive oil is real food.
So it's the fatty juice of a fruit.
So only extracted by mechanical means.
So at the end it's like a juice, but releasing the the water.
I mean, it has natural polyphenols, that is a natural antioxidant.
The people that don't like the bitterness, the bitterness is one of the best antioxidants that we have. And these are the kind of things that the olive oil will bring to us that not many other fats that it's going to give us.
His family has been farming in the northern region of Andalusia for generations.
As you know, I'm part of a olive oil farmer's family.
My brothers still run the family farm with olive trees my uncles my grandpa he got retired with 72 years old from the farming so i've been devoted to this for a long long time since fifth generation as far as i know and for me olive oil is a big big passion we have to we have to give them much more than we usually give because some people they consider this as a commodity and i think that they've been with us for so long time that we need to give respect that is what they give it to us the only world yes it's in i i come from a small village that is called montalban de cordoba it's almost in the center
of andalucía geographical center andalucía is like if you bend over portugal but across over spain and it's the largest production area in the world when i say the largest is to all in my region or spain but i I think that is the largest, the olive crop, the olive trees planted in Spain is the largest artificial olive grove, olive forest in the world.
That's my thought. Alfonso's family farm is located in Córdoba, a province of Andalucía, which, along with neighboring province, produces 30 to 40 percent of the entire world's production.
That's a lot of olive trees.
Andalucía is the most populous area in Spain and has a temperate climate with hot, dry summers, in mild winters that has made it an agricultural haven for thousands of years.
No one knows exactly where the olive tree originated, but it has been naturalized through the Mediterranean basin, including here in Andalusia and across Spain, flourishing on uncultivated lands for millennia.
Farmers over generations have bred and propagated plants for culinary uses, developing cultivars that flourish in their local terroir, which has led to the thousands of different varietals in the world we see today in Spain alone there are actually hundreds of types of olives.
We have two farms one is in here in Montalbán de Córdoba and the other one is very close to Córdoba village.
It's not a big surface in total it's about 60 hectares more or less and yes and we treat it with a lot of respect with Picoal and our Vecchina varieties varieties, and Picoal has been with us for centuries here.
And Picoal is one of the varieties we have in Spain, more than 300 varieties all over the world, more than 1 ,000.
And each variety is like a different flavor profile and different behavior.
It's like we're talking about wine.
Like different types of grapes, the flavors and characteristics of each olive, as well as its appearance, is completely unique.
Alfonso walks us through how to taste olive oil and how you might process the flavors.
Unlike wine, extra virgin olive oil is the only food product that has to undergo a tasting test, a highly systemic and tightly controlled panel in order to be classified or named as extra virgin olive oil, which is part of what Alfonso does.
Something that's important to mention about Alfonso is that he's not just an oleologist, he's also a wine taster in Spain.
I have to tell you that I'm not only a olive oil taster.
I'm also a wine taster.
I'm in a panel test of three determinations of origin here in Spain.
I have a WCT level three course already passed.
And so I know what it is to taste wine and I know what it is to taste olive oil.
And it's not better or worse.
I mean, you have less steps on tasting olive oil, but you need to know how to taste the olive oil.
And I want to make it very simple.
And you can think about tasting olive oil like dancing avals.
You know that avals is one, two, three, one, two, three, every time the same steps.
So tasting olive oil is basically the same.
So first step is the intensity of aroma.
we call that fruitiness.
It can be robust, medium, or low.
Then we have the second one, that is what type of aroma we are getting out of that olive oil, and that is the main thing because it has to remind us always to alive things on the nature.
So an extra virgin olive oil has to remind us always to do something that is alive and fresh.
If it's musty, if it's fermented, it, if it's rancid, if it's not going to be a good property for the extra virgin olive oil.
And then the third step is when you put it in your mouth, and that is quite relevant because the aftertaste for human is quite important.
Something really important is that we need to salivate properly in the mouth.
When we taste olive oil, we just take a little sip, not that much. So that one, we salivate, we emulsion it.
We make a kind of, like when you're tasting wine, you inhale some air in the olive oil.
We do the same, but a little bit more sharpie, let's say a little bit more aggressive.
But if you're not used to do that, we make a kind of noise.
I don't know if the people would be able to recognise it on the podcast, but it's going to be something like that.
Can I do it? Yes. It's a kind of zip.
It's like you inhale some air.
And, but if you don't know how to do that, because the problem of that is that you have to cut quite aggressively.
you just tamper it down with your tongue and keep the olive oil in your mouth for about 30 seconds or 45 seconds and enjoy it enjoy it and then you swallow it up and you know what happens if you swallow up too quickly that is going to have much more spiciness than what it really has and people is quite sensitive to spiciness Along with the flavor ideas of green and of nature and life and of spiciness one flavor profile that we come back to is a taste of bitterness.
This is an olive oil flavor that some might find unfamiliar perhaps stark but for olive oil it's actually a defining characteristic.
characteristic this bitterness is an indication of a high level of polyphenols specifically flavonoid polyphenols that give us this taste in fact the absence of bitterness in olive oil is what defines it to be a sweet olive oil yes like in wine they have the they have the tannins it's exactly the same one that we have in the olive oil that is making that bitterness and And the bitterness comes from the variety.
Not every oil has bitterness.
When there's no bitterness on the olive oil, we call it, we name it as a sweet olive oil.
But for the people that is not used to that bitterness and they don't know how to play with that on the kitchen, they can use a variety that we call sweet.
So they don't have that kind of bitterness that they don't like.
And they don't like because it's not because they don't like.
They don't like it because they don't expect it from the fat.
Picual, I have a nice story because my grandpa, he used to name, I mean in Montalban, he used to name the type of olive oils, extra virgin olive oils, like two ones.
It's like we have white wine and red wine.
He used to name it like white oil and black oil.
The main two varieties in my area are hojiblanca, that means white leaf, and Piqual comes from the peak at the end shape of the olive and he used to name the Piqual like black olive, olive oil and the one from Ojiblanca the white olive and it's because the Piqual was deepest and more robust extra virgin olive oil and the Ojiblanca is more has less bitterness and less astringency let's say and it's more aromatic or usually is more aromatic than Piqual.
Now with the state of the art technology that we have we can get everything out of an olive to give plenty of aroma and flavor.
So the Piqual is like robust, high -intensity aroma, tomato leaves, there is a little bit of green grass, olive, olive leaves, aromas and it's absolutely wonderful I love it.
I can't think about cooking without Piqual at all.
So what happened at Chappaquiddick?
Well, it really depends on who you talk to.
There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.
And left a woman behind to drown.
There's a famous headline, I think in the New York Daily News, It's Teddy escapes, blonde drowns.
And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you.
The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes.
Will Ted become president?
Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.
And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.
The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.
So is there a curse?
Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.
Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, everyone. It's Janae, aka Cheeky's, from Cheeky's and Chill Podcast. And I'm launching an all -new mini podcast series called Sincerely Janae.
Sure, I'm a singer, author, businesswoman, and podcaster, but at the end of the day, I am human.
And that's why I'm sharing my ups and downs with you guys.
Hi guys. I was sitting here recording episodes of Dear Chikis and Chikis and Chill and I just had to take a time out and purge my thoughts and feelings here on Sincerely J 'Nai because I've been so emotional lately you guys.
Whether I'm in my feels I've just had a breakthrough with my therapist or I've just had a really deep conversation with my siblings or I'm in glam getting ready for an award show I'm sharing my most intimate thoughts with you on the podcast. podcast you guys know i always keep it real with you guys but this time i'm taking it to the next level listen to cheekies and chill on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts hey i'm radhi davlukia and i'm the host of a really good cry podcast and i have the opportunity to talk to vivian too she is someone who is definitely changing
the way we talk about money she is a former wall street trader turned personal finance educator content creator and now the author of a New York Times bestselling book, Rich AF.
Whether you're trying to get out of debt, build wealth, negotiate like a boss, or just finally understand how to do money right, Vivian is the person to ask.
I think that is terrifying because not understanding your own money and not understanding finances is one of the easiest ways to get in a situation where you don't have options and there is risk for financial abuse.
You don't have the money to leave. You You cannot make choices that take money out of the equation because you don't have it.
And that is why every single woman needs to be good with money.
Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, I would like to show you a very good example to illustrate what I'm saying.
The oligoteca is the name that we have given to this special place.
It is something unique in the world.
We have just in front of the building a very big collection of something unique.
We have more than 150 varieties from 13 countries.
I'm standing in the world's only library for olive trees the oleoteca founded to preserve and study the biodiversity within the olive family Ana Sanchez is an educator and coordinator at the Juan Ramon Guillen Foundation which focuses on bringing the rural sector and the olive farming in Spain closer to the public like.
Since the late 80s, while the region's cultivation of olive trees intensified, leading to common mass production practices like monocropping that have eliminated some of the diversity of the olives being farmed, the foundation has been growing the varietals in its oleoteca.
Many of these trees here are more than 30 years old, while some of the newer transplants are just two or three years old and incredibly already bearing fruit for study.
It's like a garden okay the we produce olive oil with each variety every year from example for example we have brought varieties from israel or maybe from mexico albania syria or italy so we study each variety how is the rendiment how is the the best way to produce each olive oil and how it grows in our land and in our property, and how is the evolution.
The study in biodiversity seeks to understand not only the different traits and benefits unique to each type of olive, but how local terroir is expressed and how different olives vary when grown in different regions of the world.
The foundation partners with local universities and research groups to understand traits such as physiochemical properties and their correlation to disease prevention and physical properties of the plant like hardiness or resistance to disease.
We'll come back to the importance of this work later, but for now, let's wander through the grove with Anna to meet some of the unique varieties from the olives being cataloged and preserved here.
year. Although all of these trees have similar structural characteristics, a beautiful variety of colors, shapes, textures, and sizes of fruit showcase the level of diversity possible even within a closely related group of species.
There's so many characteristics that seem to be different.
Some fruit are small and round and pebble shapes while others like the thartha espana, a varietal typical to Spain is wrinkled and almost unidentifiable as an olive.
Other varieties, for example, we have Gordal.
It's a typical variety from Spain.
It's a very big one, but you can think or you may think that the quality is going to be better because it's bigger, the fruit is bigger, or it's going to produce a much more quantity because it's bigger than, for example, Arbequina.
But it isn't necessary to be like this because you can have a very high quality oil from the variety Arbequina.
And the Gordal isn't used to produce oil just for it.
The Gordal Silviana is a beloved Spanish cultivar and the biggest variety of olive by a large margin.
It's got a huge pit that's proportionally as large as its pulpy flesh.
Because it's low in oil content, this varietal is commonly seen as a table olive and not used for production.
The Koroneki olive, originating from the Peloponnese, looks actually opposite to Ordol.
It yields super high -intensity fruit that yields lots of oil.
Its constant yields of fruity, balanced oil have also made it one of the most popular olives grown in Greece.
And you see, for example, Kodoneiki is a variety from Greece that has a very good property.
And the flavour is a very interesting variety to study and maybe to develop in the future.
We don't know. And we have a very particular one that is, for example, Acebuche Blanco.
The acebuche is the wild olive tree, but the acebuche blanco, the white acebuche, is very particular because the olive, when the time of the harvesting arrives, turns to white instead of black.
luck so it is a very special one the oil isn't so good but it's a very particular olive to to show people that comes to to hacienda guzman to visit us to explain how important and how diverse and how big is the olive oil sector that's the reason of our foundation to explain all the people, to educate people and to show them going for a walk.
It's the easier way to explain them how important is the olive oil sector for Spain and for our culture.
The foundation promotes olive oil culture.
Nowadays we are using many innovative techniques maybe in the development of new businesses in many companies or many sectors, but especially in the olive oil sector, we try to balance the use of the innovation with the tradition.
In Spain, Spain is the main producer of olive oil in the world.
That's a fact. And the 80 % of the olive oil that is produced by Spain is from Andalusia.
It's a very important point because 250 ,000 families of Andalusia depends on the olive oil sector.
So we have to explain how important is the oil, the olive oil in our culture, in our society, and how important it is for our history and for our tradition.
As Ana details, olive oil is an ancient pillar to diets here.
The average Spaniard consumes one liter per month.
and this integral role in diet is true to cultures throughout the Mediterranean basin.
Along with a growing global taste for olive oil, the pressure to produce more is unquestionable.
Groves here in Andalusia today are dominated by Piqual, Olliblanca, and Arbequina, and Piqual specifically has become the world's most prolific olive, accounting for half of Spain's olive trees.
These varietals' hardiness, high oil content, and high polyphenol content have made them favorites for intensive mass growing.
This story sounds familiar because it is.
Farming in the 21st century around the world have brought to question many practices about how highly demanded crops are produced and what that means for farmers, farm workers, local agriculture and economies, and for the health of the land and environment.
In the face of not just a changing climate and a changing environment, there's also international trade tensions to consider, which we won't cover today.
At the end of the day, one of the most overwhelming forces that farmers are beholden to is simply the supply and demands of a commoditized market.
And it's become especially problematic for our farmers in Spain since the price has fallen below the cost of production in the past couple of years.
As Kyle Davis, our first expert from Olio Esteppa Co -op aptly sums it up I definitely feel for a lot of the small farmers Who, you know, their entire livelihood depends on the crop And on prices being at reasonable levels But the fact of the matter is Is that there's been a lot of olive trees planted Throughout Spain over the last five, ten years and there was a really large amount of production um in terms of the 2019 20 harvest and there was a lot of carryover as well after a record harvest in the 2018 19 harvest and so there's just a lot of olive oil on the market and it just kind of comes
down to supply and demand and so you know When there's a lot of oil, people drop their prices.
And so unfortunately, we're in a situation where the current prices for all three categories, Lumpante, Virgin and Virgin Extra, are pretty much below cost of production, which is tough for the farmers for sure.
While co -op structures and pricing practices like that of Oleo Estepa may help protect farmers from some of the volatility we see in global supply and demand, perhaps these co -op models can be a part of the solution for the future, but it's yet to be told whether these incentives will be enough to help maintain the livelihood of farmers in in the industry.
Like Simrit's farming community in India, who have become interested in coconut farming as a new cash crop, Kyle describes that for small farmers that are hurting now, we see groves and parcels of land that were historically producing olives are being replanted for crops that are paying more now, like almonds.
This feels like a complex conundrum because at the end of the day, it brings to question our entire global food system.
And there's not an easy way to understand, let alone solve for the complexities that that may bring.
So where do we go from here?
One answer for consumers can be in making informed voting decisions based on what we purchase.
At the end of the day, I think it's most important to start from an understanding of origin and where the things we eat and drink come from.
Supporting small farmers and producers who are socially and environmentally responsible is also a great starting point.
For olive oil, our friends in Spain encourage us to understand and support biodiversity within olives.
Supporting the farmers, like our friends in Spain, that are preserving this richness in plants and crops from around the world can help honor cultural origins, but can also hold a key to resilience in solving conundrums in our edible commodities features.
Thank you to our guests on this episode, Farmer Simrit Mali, Kyle Davis of Oleostepa, Oleologist Alfonso Fernandez, and Ana Sanchez of the Juan Ramon Guillen Foundation.
To learn more, check out our website www .wetstonemagazine .com, including for tips on how to taste and select olive oil, and how to just generally better appreciate the global diversity of unique cultivars.
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