Learning from Agricultural Heritage? Lessons of Sustainability from Italian “Coltura Promiscua”

Abstract

Agricultural heritage is gaining increasing importance as a repository of lessons to be learned for more sustainable agriculture in the future. Among the forgotten European agricultural heritage, the Italian grapevine “coltura promiscua,” which integrates agroforestry and intercropping, survives only in a few regions in the form of relics. Based on geographic, historic, agricultural literature published on the subject between 16th and 20th century with a focus on North eastern Italy, on previous fieldwork research, and on the analysis of recent candidacies to the Italian National register, this contribution identifies five principles that can be considered today as lessons of sustainability in agriculture: vertical intensification, spatial multifunctionality, resilience through crop diversity, labour-intensive production, personal/familiar/community attachment. Taken together, these principles describe a new rationality that seems to adapt to changed global and local conditions and can suggest new strategies to design new sustainable agricultural systems. The research suggests that sustainability principles can be found both by studying relics of agriculture heritage, and by carefully reading the literature that described them in the past, well before the concept of sustainability itself appeared in the scientific debate. Finally, this paper highlights some difficulties in practicing these lessons in modern agroforestry systems and suggests directions for future research.

From Flood Control System to Agroforestry Heritage System: Past, Present and Future of the Mulberry-Dykes and Fishponds System of Huzhou City, China

“…The progressive loss of traditional agroforestry systems, despite the recognized importance at the scientific level, is not only happening in China, but also in other countries and continents, as in Europe. The main cause is the spread of intensive agriculture, with the consequent reduction of the overall sustainability of the systems [56,57], of the related Ecosystem Services and biodiversity [58,59], and also of the energy efficiency and of the financial benefits to farmers [60]. In this sense, the reduction of the surface devoted to the agroforestry system is particularly relevant considering recent research.…”

The Evolution of Historic Agroforestry Landscape in the Northern Apennines (Italy) and Its Consequences for Slope Geomorphic Processes

“…The Italian term coltura promiscua indicates the typical association of trees, vines and arable crops. It was practised widely in the Po-Venetian Plain and on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines under different names corresponding to regional agroforestry subtypes with their own technical characteristics (alteno in Piedmont, piantata in Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, and Veneto, and alberata on the Apennines) [36][37][38].…”

Cultural Heritage in International Economic Law

“…Accordingly, agricultural heritage, meant as inherited landscapes and their associated management systems, can provide sustainable, resilient, and viable models of agricultural production. 509 Second, the consumption of agricultural products has changed as food is traded long distances.510 Of course, 'agricultural trade is both broader and narrower than trade in food. On the one hand, it encompasses non-food products such as cotton[;] on the other hand, important food products, most notably fish, are excluded from the ambit of agricultural trade.…”