00:00:03
harvesting olives in a
00:00:07
hurry we have to get a move on they
00:00:10
stole from us last
00:00:13
night gangs of Thieves are targeting
00:00:15
produce grown by Farmers like Antonio
00:00:19
Masa it's frustrating the sacrifice
00:00:22
we're making my family my colleagues
00:00:24
after working all day in the fields
00:00:26
we're having to guard them as well
00:00:30
Antonio feels powerless in this game of
00:00:32
cat and mouse one where criminals rarely
00:00:35
get
00:00:36
caught in a battle over precious olive
00:00:42
oil in six years at most all the farmers
00:00:45
here will have given up
00:00:47
[Music]
00:01:04
[Music]
00:01:16
Antonio is putting all his faith in this
00:01:18
harvest the first handpicked yield after
00:01:21
two disastrous years more and more often
00:01:24
these days he's considered giving it up
00:01:26
altogether
00:01:31
there's too much bureaucracy and way too
00:01:34
many administrative
00:01:36
hurdles and there's no generational
00:01:38
change young people don't want to do
00:01:40
this
00:01:43
[Applause]
00:01:45
anymore nevertheless Antonio's son sario
00:01:48
helps out where he
00:01:54
can this year's Harvest is expected to
00:01:57
be better than in the two previous years
00:01:59
when cop were impacted by extreme
00:02:04
drought everything's green here now but
00:02:06
in the last drought even the trees were
00:02:13
dry the farmers are grappling with a
00:02:15
different problem this year Olive
00:02:18
thieves that's why they're harvesting
00:02:20
the fruit as fast as they
00:02:22
[Applause]
00:02:24
can we work until the afternoon unload
00:02:27
the Harvest and jump in the shower then
00:02:29
we have to come back out to the fields
00:02:31
and Patrol them until 1 2:00 in the
00:02:36
morning on the back of droughts and poor
00:02:38
harvests olives are more valuable than
00:02:44
ever even if the trees are hundreds of
00:02:47
years old the thieves don't
00:02:52
[Music]
00:02:57
care they sto 12,000 kilos of Olives
00:03:00
from us look at the branches see they're
00:03:08
broken these thieves have no
00:03:10
[Applause]
00:03:12
mercy they've just hit them with this
00:03:19
[Music]
00:03:26
stick it's a huge financial loss for
00:03:29
upcoming years too damaged trees won't
00:03:33
produce much
00:03:38
[Music]
00:03:42
fruit and neither the perpetrators nor
00:03:45
their criminal Network were
00:03:50
caught there must be farmers who buy
00:03:52
olives from the thieves and channel them
00:03:54
into legal circulation as oil there's no
00:03:58
other explanation
00:04:04
faced with a recent Spate of thefts like
00:04:06
these Antonio is seriously thinking
00:04:08
about giving up on everything he's
00:04:10
worked so hard to build
00:04:14
[Music]
00:04:19
up he left Madrid 15 years ago for a
00:04:23
more peaceful life returning to his home
00:04:25
region of naal via deel
00:04:29
[Music]
00:04:32
[Applause]
00:04:40
a newborn lamb how
00:04:43
amazing life on this Earth is both an
00:04:45
illusion and a great
00:04:48
sacrifice but seeing a creature like
00:04:50
this makes it all
00:04:52
worthwhile what else can I
00:04:55
say this is life
00:04:59
[Music]
00:05:05
the Marino Lambs are Antonio's pride and
00:05:08
joy and a second income stream along
00:05:10
with the olives he and his family also
00:05:13
make sausage and
00:05:15
[Music]
00:05:21
cheese but his dream of an idilic rural
00:05:25
life has long since been shattered
00:05:30
[Music]
00:05:33
in the wake of two consecutive drought
00:05:35
years 2022 and 2023 olive oil production
00:05:39
plummeted by more than
00:05:44
[Music]
00:05:51
half crop failures in Spain the world's
00:05:55
largest producer of olive oil sent
00:05:57
prices skyrocketing across Europe
00:06:04
in Spanish supermarkets the valuable
00:06:06
bottles are now fitted with security
00:06:08
tags or locked to
00:06:12
[Music]
00:06:16
shelves at the Olive Mill Antonio also
00:06:19
gets more money per
00:06:23
kilo within a year the price of olive
00:06:26
oil has more than doubled in Spain
00:06:31
[Music]
00:06:44
but Antonio has still made a loss
00:06:47
because of the crop failures and to make
00:06:49
matters worse now there are criminal
00:06:51
gangs trying to get to the
00:06:57
olives there are thefts every
00:07:00
but more this year because of the price
00:07:05
rise the stolen olives are shipped to
00:07:08
other regions for
00:07:09
[Applause]
00:07:17
pressing but Farmers aren't the only
00:07:20
victims in this type of crime oil Mill
00:07:23
Operators are also impacted
00:07:33
Jose Medina had four break-ins in 2023
00:07:37
they were highly professional
00:07:40
[Music]
00:07:42
jobs
00:07:44
okay you can see it
00:07:47
here they smashed the stones and open
00:07:49
the door that way with a
00:07:55
crowbar beforehand perpetrators cut the
00:07:58
power supply to the alarm
00:08:02
system the cost to Jose after four
00:08:05
burglaries in quick succession
00:08:11
80,000 they stole a total of 14 pallets
00:08:15
from up
00:08:16
there they must have used a forklift
00:08:19
truck we're making a loss because of the
00:08:23
break-ins because our insurers are
00:08:25
refusing to pay out
00:08:33
they say our alarm system should have
00:08:35
directly alerted the
00:08:39
police that's why they're not paying a
00:08:48
scent Jose has been running his oil mill
00:08:51
for 25 years he employs a staff of seven
00:08:55
but doesn't know if he can keep them
00:08:58
on his oil is derived from an ancient
00:09:01
Grove with good
00:09:03
soil as well as regular oil for
00:09:06
restaurants he also exports selected
00:09:08
products as far as Japan and
00:09:11
Taiwan but the business now has an
00:09:14
uncertain
00:09:19
future they also stole from here and
00:09:21
took the five liter
00:09:23
bottles the other bottles too everything
00:09:26
but the
00:09:28
vinegar feel so powerless and angry
00:09:31
honestly I'd like to kill these guys all
00:09:34
the effort we put into the oil and it's
00:09:36
gone
00:09:39
[Music]
00:09:42
now if his insurance company doesn't pay
00:09:45
then Jose may go
00:09:47
bankrupt even though the perpetrators of
00:09:49
the last break-in were actually
00:09:51
[Music]
00:09:57
caught I asked the police whether the
00:09:59
thieves would go to jail and whether I'd
00:10:01
get my money back they said no a judge
00:10:05
won't impose a prison sentence for this
00:10:07
kind of theft and you won't get any of
00:10:09
your money
00:10:12
back on patrol with a special unit of
00:10:15
Spain's environmental
00:10:18
police we're checking a thinket
00:10:23
today Fran kamora has been with Spain's
00:10:26
nature Protection Service for 30 years
00:10:30
his unit is on the olive thieves Trail
00:10:33
and stepping up the number of
00:10:35
raids partly because there's growing
00:10:37
pressure on investigators to bring more
00:10:39
of these cases to
00:10:42
[Applause]
00:10:49
[Music]
00:10:55
court they mostly steal at night it's
00:10:58
safer
00:11:01
but actually we're now seeing more
00:11:03
daytime raids on larger
00:11:08
FAS Clan explains that it's impossible
00:11:10
to be everywhere all the
00:11:12
time and frankly admits even with the
00:11:15
help of drones and motorbikes it's
00:11:18
difficult to catch the
00:11:23
[Music]
00:11:25
[Applause]
00:11:27
gangs there are simply two many of
00:11:31
them on top of that the police can only
00:11:34
detain offenders for a short
00:11:39
[Music]
00:11:42
time we cture maximum 10% of the thieves
00:11:47
it's difficult and the success rate is
00:11:52
[Music]
00:11:53
minimal on today's Patrol Fran and his
00:11:56
colleague are looking for illegal bore
00:11:58
holes
00:12:01
they're here to carry out an unannounced
00:12:03
inspection on the property of a farmer
00:12:05
who grows olives and
00:12:11
oranges they've lock the gate we can't
00:12:14
get through by car everything's fenced
00:12:16
off they're definitely trying to block
00:12:18
our
00:12:23
access from here there's no option but
00:12:26
to continue on foot
00:12:31
[Music]
00:12:36
there might be guard dogs running around
00:12:39
Fran and his colleagues from the
00:12:40
waterboard can't be sure then they find
00:12:43
the first illegal
00:12:45
[Music]
00:12:51
well they drilled one here but the
00:12:54
farmer has taken the Machinery away
00:13:01
but he can easily reactivate the bore
00:13:03
hole when the next dry spell
00:13:08
comes let's go look at the other
00:13:24
two thanks to tip offs from Neighbors
00:13:27
they know where to find the illegal bore
00:13:28
hold
00:13:29
[Music]
00:13:43
under Spanish law it's forbidden to have
00:13:45
a well in such close proximity to the
00:13:47
stream over
00:13:51
there this out house and its pumping
00:13:54
station are illegal
00:14:01
we have to prove that it's in
00:14:06
use they quickly realize it's extracting
00:14:17
water but this alone isn't enough to
00:14:20
slap the farmer with a fine they must
00:14:22
also prove that the seal affixed on the
00:14:24
last inspection isn't damaged in any way
00:14:37
it looks as though the seal is still on
00:14:40
it hasn't been tampered
00:14:43
with the inspectors are finding more and
00:14:46
more bore holes also as a result of the
00:14:49
drought because some farmers will do
00:14:51
anything to save their crops even if
00:14:53
it's against the
00:14:55
law farmers are using more water every
00:14:58
year which means groundwater levels are
00:15:01
sinking expanding Olive and orange
00:15:04
plantations need more and more
00:15:07
irrigation so farmers are drilling
00:15:09
deeper and deeper bore holes running the
00:15:12
risk that eventually all our Water
00:15:14
Resources will run
00:15:21
[Music]
00:15:23
out exacerbating the problem drastic
00:15:26
changes within the sector
00:15:29
more and more farmers are uprooting
00:15:31
their ancient olive
00:15:40
trees many are then exported to Qatar
00:15:44
and even
00:15:45
Japan before that can happen the
00:15:48
centuries old trunks must be
00:15:49
meticulously
00:15:56
[Music]
00:15:57
cleaned the tree is more popular than
00:16:00
ever as an ornamental plant in the
00:16:02
Middle East and
00:16:12
Asia in place of the old trees young
00:16:15
ones planted close together in rows
00:16:18
intensive Olive farming requires less
00:16:20
human intervention more water and more
00:16:23
pesticides and produces significantly
00:16:25
higher
00:16:27
yields leaving farmers with more profit
00:16:29
in their
00:16:31
[Music]
00:16:37
pockets but there are other gentler
00:16:44
[Music]
00:16:48
approaches such as organic cultivation
00:16:51
without additional irrigation and
00:16:53
without pesticides
00:16:55
[Music]
00:16:58
one Pioneer in organic farming is
00:17:01
Antonio pentes Campos an agricultural
00:17:04
engineer he's currently passing on some
00:17:06
of his sustainability KN how to Farmers
00:17:08
from his region their primary question
00:17:11
why he lets grass grow on his
00:17:16
Plantation when we stopped spraying the
00:17:18
soil with weed killers many people found
00:17:20
it totally
00:17:25
inconceivable but it actually makes it
00:17:26
easier to control pests and
00:17:34
dises Antonio spent years honing ways to
00:17:37
cultivate the best olives he's been a
00:17:40
certified organic Farmer for 4 years
00:17:42
with an astonishingly simple recipe for
00:17:50
Success plant growth on the ground has
00:17:53
boosted lacewing populations these feed
00:17:55
on pests that attack the olive so if we
00:17:58
see pests it's not a problem as long as
00:18:00
we see enough lace Wings nature
00:18:02
regulates itself and creates a
00:18:03
sustainable
00:18:09
balance Antonio shares his insights on
00:18:13
microbiology and explains that his
00:18:15
Plantation is better able to withstand
00:18:17
periods of drought than regular
00:18:20
ones this pequs the farmer's interest
00:18:30
small holders think organic cultivation
00:18:32
is worthwhile but large Farms
00:18:34
don't they retain their intensive
00:18:36
methods and pocket the profits depleting
00:18:38
the soil in the long
00:18:42
[Music]
00:18:47
term Spain's organic farming sector is
00:18:50
growing but it's still a niche
00:18:53
[Music]
00:18:55
market when we started out 15 years ago
00:18:58
letting the grass grow was Unthinkable
00:19:01
that's why people in the village asked
00:19:02
my mother if we were selling the land
00:19:04
they thought we'd abandoned The
00:19:11
Grove on the contrary Antonio has
00:19:14
optimized the entire process right
00:19:16
through to the Olive Mill stage and
00:19:19
created his own organic brand it's one
00:19:22
him accolades all over the world
00:19:24
[Music]
00:19:38
European Union funding programs have
00:19:40
helped finance the Endeavor it's hoped
00:19:43
the Region's conventional farmers will
00:19:45
be encouraged to try the new approach
00:19:48
after all they can sell organic olive
00:19:50
oil for a much higher
00:19:54
[Music]
00:19:55
price we're stuck in our ways it's
00:19:58
difficult for us to imagine growing
00:20:00
without pesticides but we must follow
00:20:02
the path of the
00:20:08
[Music]
00:20:12
young back in
00:20:14
naala with Antonio Massa he's divvying
00:20:17
up the cars for the night Patrol because
00:20:20
the harvest season is drawing to an end
00:20:23
he and his neighbors are only using six
00:20:25
cars at the peak of the season it's 40
00:20:28
to
00:20:31
50 there are whole gangs of people out
00:20:34
and about stealing olives this man has
00:20:36
been robbed for several years in a row
00:20:38
Antonio
00:20:41
too the police only Patrol the roads
00:20:45
it's us farmers who are actually dealing
00:20:47
with the problem and who know the
00:20:49
location of the olives
00:20:55
thereafter sometimes the thieves are
00:20:57
caught and the olives seized but the
00:20:59
next day they're released and steal
00:21:02
again there are many repeat
00:21:09
offenders in Spain it's only considered
00:21:11
theft upwards of 400 EUR per offender as
00:21:15
long as the laws don't change we'll have
00:21:16
to carry on doing
00:21:21
[Music]
00:21:23
this it's 900 p.m. time to get going
00:21:28
[Music]
00:21:32
Antonio will be driving around for 5
00:21:34
hours
00:21:37
[Music]
00:21:47
tonight I'm so
00:21:50
tired imagine doing this after a long
00:21:52
working
00:21:54
day it costs us fuel time
00:21:58
no one likes it but we truly don't have
00:22:01
any
00:22:06
choice will they intercept any thieves
00:22:10
[Music]
00:22:14
tonight 10 days ago we managed to catch
00:22:17
a
00:22:21
group they tried to run away but we were
00:22:25
able to stop them
00:22:29
we then handed them over to the
00:22:33
[Music]
00:22:42
police a quick meeting with his son
00:22:45
Serio and colleagues so far nothing to
00:22:56
report the patrols take up hours of our
00:22:59
time a few sandwiches for dinner this is
00:23:02
no
00:23:03
life hopefully the Harvest will soon be
00:23:05
over then things will calm down a
00:23:10
bit let's drive
00:23:15
on at 2: a.m. Antonio is finally done
00:23:18
for the night
00:23:22
[Applause]
00:23:29
but the next morning he's up early and
00:23:32
back out in the
00:23:34
[Applause]
00:23:35
fields his neighbor needs
00:23:45
help we're hurrying because they've been
00:23:47
back and stolen on a massive scale
00:23:49
during the night it's really
00:23:52
stressful 900 kilos stolen from my
00:23:55
neighbor
00:23:56
[Applause]
00:23:59
despite being out on patrol last night
00:24:01
they didn't notice the
00:24:02
thieves now neighbor Juan Sano has to
00:24:05
quickly pick all the olives in case they
00:24:10
return I'm so angry we T the olive trees
00:24:14
throughout the year and they steal
00:24:15
hundreds of kilos in one night and leave
00:24:18
the trees so damaged they won't produce
00:24:21
any fruit next year
00:24:23
[Music]
00:24:25
[Applause]
00:24:28
he estimates the cost at
00:24:32
€1,200 luckily Juan and his wife are
00:24:35
able to rely on the support of friends
00:24:37
and
00:24:40
neighbors my husband's still recovering
00:24:42
from an operation on his hand so it's
00:24:44
important that Antonio and the others
00:24:46
are helping us
00:24:49
today there's strength in community it
00:24:52
also shows the thieves that our village
00:24:54
is United it might even scare them
00:24:57
that's our message to them
00:24:59
don't think you can come here and take
00:25:00
away our bread and butter we'll show
00:25:08
you on days like these many farmers here
00:25:12
think of giving
00:25:15
up the farmer's life isn't easy as it is
00:25:19
you have to keep on top of everything
00:25:21
and then Along come these thieves and
00:25:24
take our crops away it's a huge blow
00:25:34
this battle is being waged with
00:25:36
increasing
00:25:39
ferocity Farmers from the region
00:25:41
recently caught a gang of Thieves
00:25:43
red-handed and set fire to their
00:25:51
car whenever Antonio takes his olives to
00:25:54
the head of his Cooperative discussions
00:25:57
always revolve around the same topic
00:25:59
growing
00:26:05
anger anger at EU regulations at the
00:26:09
thieves and at the Spanish government
00:26:12
which isn't doing enough to catch those
00:26:22
responsible every year we remind the
00:26:24
police that it's down to them to root
00:26:26
out this theft problem not just by
00:26:29
monitoring our
00:26:30
Fields but also by following the trail
00:26:32
to the Mills where the thieves secretly
00:26:34
sell her
00:26:37
olives after all if they can sell them
00:26:41
the olives aren't worth anything to the
00:26:50
thieves Antonio loves his profession
00:26:53
despite everything the smell of freshly
00:26:56
pressed olives for him there's nothing
00:26:59
like
00:27:02
[Music]
00:27:09
it a tractor attachment has just been
00:27:12
delivered to the farm it should speed up
00:27:15
the
00:27:15
[Music]
00:27:17
Harvest for the time being the Father
00:27:19
and Son Duo don't intend to give
00:27:21
[Music]
00:27:26
up somehow it's worth it trying out this
00:27:30
new machine with my son you can't put a
00:27:33
price on
00:27:34
that yeah gangs of Thieves are roing our
00:27:37
country but I won't just give
00:27:45
[Applause]
00:27:51
[Music]
00:27:54
up the olive vacuum cleaner works
00:27:59
it's an investment in the
00:28:01
[Music]
00:28:04
future we must carry on after all I love
00:28:07
this work otherwise I'd have given up a
00:28:09
long time ago
00:28:13
[Music]
00:28:23
[Music]
