In pictures: Reforms press Greek olive oil producers

• 

• 

  A worker pulls leaves from olives gathered in a net in Kalo Pedi village west of Athens. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Olive mill worker Sakis Vasilopoulos fills a can of olive oil at his family business in Velanidi, west of Athens. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Konstantinos Vasilopoulos operates a machine that washes olives at his family-owned olive oil business in Velanidi, west of Athens. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Dimitris Apostolopoulos collects olives at an olive grove in Velanidi village. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  A bottle gets filled from a vat containing extra virgin olive oil at a storage site near Pyrgos in southern Greece. Greece is the world’s third-biggest olive oil producer but has been losing ground to leaders Spain and Italy. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Local producers argue that allowing the sale of blended oil would undermine an effort to build stronger Greek brands with this compelling selling point: most growers operate on a small scale and can keep a closer eye on quality. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Greece is the world’s third-biggest olive oil producer but has been losing ground to leaders Spain and Italy where farmland is flatter and increasingly mechanised. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Olive producers worry that Greece could spoil its own signature product. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  A worker collects olives with relatives at a family grove in Kalo Pedi west of Athens. Greece is the world’s third-biggest olive oil producer but is losing ground to leaders Spain and Italy. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Greek Orthodox Priest Dimitris Vlasopoulos collects olives from a canvas tarp in Kalo Pedi village, west of Athens. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

• 

  Local producers argue that allowing the sale of blended oil would undermine an effort to build stronger Greek brands with this compelling selling point: most growers operate on a small scale and can keep a closer eye on quality. Petros Giannakouris / AP Photo

Plans to extend a brutal efficiency drive to olive oil production in Greece have been met with anger and disbelief. If proposals from a government funded study are adopted, olive oil blended with cheaper vegetable oils will soon go on sale as part of an effort to modernise the Greek economy, which was rescued from near bankruptcy four years ago.