Lesvos Olive Oil
Eleven million olive trees (out of a total of 83.5 millions in Greece) covering 4.500.000 sq. metres of land (29% of the island’s total size and 79% of the island’s cultivable agricultural land), produce 20.000 tones of oil (in average) per year. One hundred and thirteen trees correspond to every inhabitant of Lesvos, when the same analogy in Samos is 40 trees, in Crete 35, in Peloponnesus 12, in Greece 9, in Italy 3 and in Spain 5. One percent of the population of the island produces 7-8% of the entire Greek production
Numbers reveal the dominant presence of this blessed tree on the land of Lesvos. Numbers alone can accurately define percentages, revenues and sizes. Nevertheless, the importance of the olive tree to the inhabitants of Lesvos can not be satisfactorily described. There are no words to ascribe the closeness and connection of this plant to the cultural and historical course of the island. As Thanasis Paraskevaides beautifully puts it: the history of our island sprouts on the tortured olive trunks. Olive trees carry human voices, our voices. Our country is an olive tree that grew and sprung with the care of our hands and our children’s hands. The continuation of its generation brings our name on it. We – each one of us – are olive trees