The 58-year-old farmer Panagiotis Patsias from Ierapetra, known for his countless patents and inventions in Gra Lygia, where he lives, managed—in just a few days, using recycled materials, imagination, passion, and craftsmanship, to build a multi-purpose machine that runs on electricity or a generator and can simultaneously process five sacks of olives, which it «sorts through,» strips the branches from which the olives remain, and packs them clean—free of leaves—into the sacks.

Thanks to this invention by Panagiotis Patsias—who worked for many years (before becoming a farmer) as a professional truck driver and taxi driver, to «sort through» 5 sacks of olives and bag them in just 5 minutes.

In building it, he has used and assembled many different parts, such as motors, gearboxes, gears, a conveyor belt, sheet metal, a trailer, and wheels from one of his old cars, spending many hours welding, in order to weld all these small pieces together and create the machine he had designed in his mind, so that he could ”de-stem” his olives correctly and quickly on his own, without bothering his workers, who at the same time are harvesting his olive trees with olive harvesters.

«The other day, I had an idea: to build a machine that would ”sift through” the picked olives and separate them from the leaves, so they’d go into the sacks clean before I take them to the olive mill. That way, I don’t lose a single olive, and I save on the labor required to sift the olives using a traditional sieve..

It saddened me that among the olive branches and leaves left over from the ”leaf-picking” in the sieve, there were still many small branches with olives on them, and they were fed to the goats and sheep. I felt it wasn’t right to go to all that trouble to tend my trees so they’d bear olives, to harvest them, to put them in sacks, and then, while sifting them, leave them on the twigs for the birds or the goats and sheep to eat. So I came up with this contraption, which ensures I don’t lose a single olive, saves on labor, and allows me to transport sacks full of olives— free of leaves, so they can be pressed immediately», he told neakriti Panagiotis Patsias.

A Life Full of Patents

”Work is easier and more fun”

«I built the machine entirely on my own, using simple, secondhand materials. I have it solely to meet the needs of my own olive grove, and I’m not interested in patenting it, even though I know nothing like it has ever been built before.

That’s how I’ve learned to function throughout my life. My mind is always coming up with new ways to make farm work easier, and at the same time more interesting and fun. In short, my whole life is full of inventions.», concludes 58-year-old inventor, farmer, amateur radio operator, and former professional taxi and truck driver Panagiotis Patsias, from Trikala, who has been living for the past 37 years as a «romantic migrant» in Gra Lygia, Ierapetra.