No abstract

No abstract

Olive tree cultivation in the Mediterranean goes back to ancient times. Even since the Roman Age, olive cultivation spread to the entire Mediterranean basin. This longevous tree integrates and identifies economically, socially, and culturally the inhabitants of this basin and determines its rural landscape. For the residents of the Mediterranean, olive oil constituted the main source of nutritional fats, their most valuable export product, and was identified with their culture. Even now, olive cultivation has a multiple importance for the Mediterranean. The olive groves, which grow mostly on inclined, shallow, and low fertility soils, and on hand-made stone terraces, have limited watering requirements and sustain the fragile natural resources of the Mediterranean. Today, olive cultivation in the Mediterranean is an additional income source and supports the population in rural areas during the winter period, which profit from summer and sea tourism activity. Although an agro-ecosystem, the olive grove resembles the natural Mediterranean ecosystem and abandonment transforms them into natural Mediterranean type forests. Their change of use from olive cultivation to pasture degrades the ecosystem and decreases the natural resources, because of over-grazing. At this time, two major factors threaten the traditional olive cultivation (i) the competition of the intensive olive groves in plain and irrigated areas and (ii) the cheaper seed-oils, which intensify the abandonment of traditional olive groves and change them into pasture, resulting in the deterioration of the ecosystem. Olive cultivation has left its mark on life in the Mediterranean and has contributed to the sustainability of natural resources. Nevertheless, it succumbs under the pressure of current socioeconomic situations. Today, the conservation of olives in production constitutes a necessity for the fragile Mediterranean ecosystems and a challenge for everybody involved.

/ The modernization of agriculture and the development of other economic sectors have prompted the abandonment of cultivated areas, which are marginally productive. Specifically, olive groves in Greece are transformed into pastures due to their location in inaccessible mountainous regions where breeding and raising of sheep and goats are the main economic activities. Overgrazing degrades the environment, exhausts natural resources, and prevents natural regeneration. The Greek islands have limited possibilities of development, except for their coastal areas where the growth of tourism is possible.The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of tourism activities on olive tree cultivation and the human population of the island of Lesbos. The presence or absence of tourism is related with the maintenance or abandonment of olive tree cultivation and population changes for each community. A spatial segregation of the island is evident, related to tourist development, olive tree cultivation, and population change. The results of the study demonstrate that in communities where tourism plays an important role olive tree cultivation is preserved and the population is stable. The preservation of the agro-ecosystem is assured while the olive groves remain productive. Simultaneously, the landscape, which provides specific attractions for tourism, is not altered.

Up to now, several scientific works have noted that the organic sector resembles more and more conventional farming's structures, what is widely known as the ''conventionalization'' thesis. This phenomenon constitutes an area of conflict between organic farming's original vision and its current reality and raises ethical and social questions concerning the structure of agricultural systems of production and their interactions with the socio-economic and natural environment. The main issue of this dialogue is the concept of sustainable agriculture, which for scientists and policymakers is a means to express their vision of a better agriculture. In this article we focus on agricultural sustainability in the context of capitalist production as conducted by the two subsystems of agro-industrial system. As we have proposed in this article, the relationship between organic agriculture, defined by two essential components (prevention and direct marketing), and the agro-industrial complex, defined by two subsystems, indicates the degree of agricultural sustainability. The investigation of this relationship can be extremely useful as it may lead those involved in the discussion of sustainability to identify the key aspects of sustainable agriculture. In order to investigate the interaction of organic farming with the agro-industrial complex, a survey was conducted in Central Macedonia, Northern Greece, involving local organic farms. The results of our study indicate that a large proportion of organic producers did not differ substantially from their counterparts in conventional agriculture in so far as their relationship with the agro-industrial complex is concerned. Finally, this research highlights two scenarios for the evolution of organic farming. The first is the full absorption of organic farming to the existing economic system and the second one is the development of organic farming in a radically opposite direction to conventional farming.