It’s been called ‘invasivorism’. Is it an environmentally friendly diet or a feel-good distraction?
For three decades, Phil Mather has harvested olives from feral trees around South Australia. Mather, a landscape gardener, began hand-picking the fruit and pressing it into oil in his early 20s.
It’s a seasonal pastime that has turned into a business in the past eight years. “This year I have produced over 1,500 litres, which entails nearly nine tonnes of wild fruit and [olives from] relinquished groves,” he says. Now 51, he sells most of his oil locally, at the Willunga Farmers Market and through retailers in Adelaide.