Olivicoltura multifunzionale e paesaggio

OLIVE LANDSCAPE AND MULTIFUNCTIONAL GROWING. The olive grove is the major portion of Mediterranean landscape mosaic. The dominance of olive cropping on agricultural space, the plant framework and the productive structure’s longevity are just a few of the features rendering the olive tree symbol of heritage and cultural identity in the Mediterranean area. High levels of environmental value in terms of animal and vegetal biodiversity are found in low input olive agro-ecosystems, as a natural ecosystems mimic. The CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) Health Check 2009 ascribes to agriculture the multifunctional attribute and the role of landscape guardian, identifying in farms the most active actors in producing no food services such as agro-ecosystem conservation and restoration, land marketing and local productions. Trades, economic policies and land planning decisions in last decades influenced and determined the evolution of most of rural lands, naturally dynamic, to abandon practices or land degradation. The need to protect landscapes, as well as farmlands has became urgent. However, some of the actual landscape management plans are regarded as conflicting with the most important goal of agriculture: the production. The olive groves landscape protection, such as of all the rural landscapes, must be reached bounding different and sometimes opposite needs, linked to the environment protection through conservation and to the structural changes in farming and in turn in landscaping driven by farmers initiative. Planning a systematic and synergic action between public, as landscape conservation, and private interest, as farmer’s goals, is imperative to support and enhance land management.