Sergi Claramunt, a farmer from Vilallonga del Camp, suffered firsthand this Thursday the cruelty that farmers experience: the night before harvesting, almost half of his production was stolen.
Some thieves have taken 200 kilos of olives, a situation that is being repeated in different parts of Camp de Tarragona in a campaign in which the price of this fruit has skyrocketed due to the rise in the price of olive oil.
"I have been lucky because they have not cut the branches. It has happened to other farmers. If they cut them, you will not harvest either this year or next year," he explained, resigned.
Claramunt, a member of the Unió de Pagesos executive, emphasizes the need to report while regretting that thieves have accumulated dozens of criminal records.
Claramunt commented that on Wednesday afternoon he stopped by the farm to check that everything was in order and take a look the day before collecting the fruits of a year of work. When he went to the field early this Thursday, she found that they had beaten her to it. "I have forty young olive trees and I hoped to harvest about 500 kilos," she stated.
In the context of a campaign in which the price of olive oil is skyrocketing, olives have revalued and "for the first time" they are paid for approximately one euro per kilo.
For farmers the key is to find out where the stolen olives end up. They suspect that thieves resell them to private mills to make oil. Among farmers there is already the idea that other farmers are the ones who buy the stolen olives and then pass them off as their own when they must certify their origin.
Claramunt plans to file a complaint at the Mossos de Valls police station this Friday and has encouraged all of her affected colleagues to do the same.
This aspect has been highlighted by the fact that "among older farmers there is a taboo of not reporting because they do nothing to the thieves." "If there is no complaint, it seems that nothing happens. Mossos and administration, if they do not have complaints, they do not have robberies," he highlighted.
The unionist has lamented that "in the countryside there are always thefts because there is no violence", so "there are people who accumulate up to 70 thefts and until the judge looks at this file, these people are roaming the territory."
Likewise, he has acknowledged that although police surveillance has been increased in the fields, the police "cannot reach everywhere." He added that farmers "are usually the last" when it comes to having surveillance guaranteed.
