Italian Bill Would Support Hobby Growers to Prevent Abandonment

Summary

A pro­posed bill in Italy aims to expand pub­lic sup­port for olive grow­ers with sec­ondary occu­pa­tions who main­tain their orchards for self-con­sump­tion or shar­ing with fam­ily and friends. The bill seeks to encour­age sus­tain­able prac­tices, restore aban­doned groves, and rec­og­nize the impor­tant role of non-pro­fes­sional grow­ers in safe­guard­ing the coun­try’s olive-grow­ing her­itage, ulti­mately aim­ing to com­bat aban­don­ment and decline in olive oil pro­duc­tion capac­ity. Additionally, a regional bill is being pro­moted to cre­ate a pub­lic Olive Observatory in Veneto to assess and sup­port non-pro­fes­sional grow­ers, with hopes for national approval and sup­port from agri­cul­tural com­mit­tees.

Public sup­port for olive grow­ing in Italy could soon be expanded to include more olive groves and grow­ers than ever before.

According to a newly pro­posed bill, the gov­ern­ment would acknowl­edge the work done by grow­ers whose pri­mary occu­pa­tions lie else­where but still main­tain and care for their olive orchards.

The olive oil pro­duced from these groves is almost entirely used for self-con­sump­tion or shared within the grower’s close cir­cle of fam­ily and friends.

The idea is to encour­age grow­ers to adopt sus­tain­able prac­tices and to help them recover and restore aban­doned groves.

According to the National Agency for Services to the Agricultural Market (Ismea), at least three mil­lion fam­i­lies across the coun­try are involved in self-pro­duc­tion.

While there are no offi­cial fig­ures on the quan­ti­ties pro­duced, it is esti­mated that between 30 and 37 per­cent of Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion is des­tined for self-con­sump­tion.

“We are talk­ing about small or medium-sized groves, which rep­re­sent a sec­ondary activ­ity for many. Still, it is very impor­tant,” Alberto Bozza, regional coun­cilor in Veneto and one of the pro­mot­ers of the new bill, told Olive Oil Times.

“Their work is non-pro­fes­sional, but they take care of the envi­ron­ment, safe­guard the land, pro­mote bio­di­ver­sity and help con­trol pests such as the olive fruit fly,” he added.

Most of these olive groves have been passed down through gen­er­a­tions. Over time, how­ever, the amount of work required to main­tain them, com­bined with low yields and chal­leng­ing cli­mate con­di­tions, has con­tributed to their aban­don­ment.

This trend is wide­spread, par­tic­u­larly in hilly and moun­tain­ous areas.

“An aban­doned olive grove harms the land­scape and increases the risk of hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal insta­bil­ity and wild­fires,” Bozza said.

Such changes to the land­scape are con­sid­ered among the causes of the decline in Italy’s over­all olive oil pro­duc­tion capac­ity.

“The idea is to com­bat aban­don­ment by rec­og­niz­ing new roles, includ­ing that of olive grow­ers who are nei­ther farm­ers nor agri­cul­tural entre­pre­neurs,” the pro­posed bill states. ​“These new roles should be con­sid­ered guardians of the national olive-grow­ing her­itage.”

Last year, a new national law was intro­duced des­ig­nat­ing pro­fes­sional farm­ers and agri­cul­tural coop­er­a­tives as envi­ron­men­tal custo­di­ans.

Olive cul­ti­va­tion in Italy cov­ers approx­i­mately 1.1 mil­lion hectares, with nearly 620,000 pro­duc­ers and more than 4,300 olive oil mills.

In the last three years, the dif­fi­cul­ties of remain­ing prof­itable have led more than 26,500 com­pa­nies to cease oper­a­tions.

“Even in this sce­nario, Italian olive oil is still con­sid­ered the high­est-qual­ity prod­uct avail­able world­wide,” Bozza said.

According to the bill’s pro­mot­ers, the supe­rior qual­ity of Italian olive oil depends on the country’s wide vari­ety of olive tree cul­ti­vars, unique cli­mate con­di­tions and tra­di­tional pro­duc­tion processes.

However, many fam­ily grow­ers are not eli­gi­ble for pub­lic sup­port and have lim­ited access to tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions despite con­tribut­ing to Italy’s olive bio­di­ver­sity.

Current laws exempt self-pro­duc­ing grow­ers from the strict reg­u­la­tions applied to pro­fes­sional pro­duc­ers, includ­ing require­ments for trace­abil­ity and the reg­is­tra­tion of pro­duc­tion vol­umes in the National Agricultural Information System (SIAN).

Growers are clas­si­fied as non-pro­fes­sional as long as their annual olive oil pro­duc­tion does not exceed 350 kilo­grams, and their prod­uct is not sold.

“In this con­text, a cru­cial step is to have a clear pic­ture of the sit­u­a­tion,” Bozza said, stress­ing the lack of reli­able offi­cial data.

For this rea­son, Bozza and his col­leagues are also pro­mot­ing a regional bill call­ing for cre­at­ing a pub­lic Olive Observatory in Veneto. ​“This is a crit­i­cal step that other Italian regions could eas­ily adopt,” he said.

According to Bozza, the obser­va­tory would allow the region to exam­ine, ver­ify and mon­i­tor the con­di­tion of its olive-grow­ing areas. The goal is to carry out a pre­cise cen­sus to clas­sify all olive-grow­ing lands and assess the health of each cul­ti­vated area.

“This cen­sus will help regional insti­tu­tions eval­u­ate how to sup­port non-pro­fes­sional grow­ers,” Bozza added, sug­gest­ing that addi­tional resources could be made avail­able through regional, national and European pro­grams.

Several asso­ci­a­tions in the farm­ing and olive sec­tors have already expressed sup­port for the new leg­is­la­tion.

According to Tommaso Loiodice, pres­i­dent of the National Union of Olive Oil Producers (Unapol), the bill should be sup­ported to help pre­vent the aban­don­ment of olive groves.

“However, it is impor­tant not to con­fuse this type of olive grow­ing, which I would call hob­by­ist and which in most cases pro­duces oil for fam­ily con­sump­tion, with com­mer­cial olive grow­ing that sup­plies the mar­ket,” Loiodice said.

“In my view, the pro­posed law should encour­age coop­er­a­tion and aggre­ga­tion among these small pro­duc­ers, with a long-term vision aimed at cre­at­ing more struc­tured and prof­itable busi­nesses,” he added.

Bozza hopes the approval of the obser­va­tory will come from the Veneto regional coun­cil by this sum­mer.

“As for the national bill, it will be assigned to the rel­e­vant par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee,” he said. ​“At that point, I will work to raise aware­ness among national par­lia­ment mem­bers, espe­cially those on the agri­cul­tural com­mit­tees, to try to speed up the process if they believe the pro­posal aligns with national agri­cul­tural pol­icy pri­or­i­ties.”

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