One has to believe. The Cooperative Olive Oil Mill was born from the desire to believe, created to process the fruits of the olive trees planted at the end of the latifundium system, with the Land Reform – today it tells a story of changes, starting from olives picked one by one to the introduction of the most modern and fast machinery. It is a success story, of an oil mill that in its best years processed 50,000 quintals of olives, but it is also a story of pain, when the olive trees suddenly dried up, in fields that became ghostly with withered and dark trunks, with the feeling of being overwhelmed by something inconceivable and unstoppable. But we must believe in some small sign of possible recovery, in those who plant the resistant varieties that bring the fields back to being green, and in seeing the machines of the olive mill functioning again and the precious oil flowing, because the olive tree in Salento must be eternal, like the work that has always accompanied it.
- Olive growing
The Cooperative Olive Oil Mill
"Nel 1955 si sentiva la necessità di un oleificio, ai tempi c’erano le cooperative di servizi dell’ente riforma e questa cooperativa fu trasformata in oleificio. Nel frattempo si pensava a costruire una struttura dove dare sede all’oleificio. Da lì si è fatto un grosso percorso fino ad arrivare ad un’annata splendida a livello di produzione ed abbiamo lavorato circa 50 mila quintali di olive nel 75-77".
A story by
Piero Romanello and Marco Cazzato
