Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

CENTRAL ITA LY
productive area was classed as arable, 29% as woodland, 13% as pasture and 4%
as under tree crops; less than 1% o f the proprietors owned 73-5% o f the area in
holdings o f over 100 ha and 50% o f it belonged to owners holding over 500 ha.
O f those engaged in agriculture about one-fifth were landless and o f the rest the
majority owned so little that they were forced to engage themselves as mezzadri
or hired labourers. Whatever the peasant’s status the average number o f days
worked per year did not exceed 160 and throughout the comprensorio the average
density of poptilation was only about 56 per sq km, about one-third o f the national
average.
Between 1951 and 1955 some 192,000 ha belonging to over 600 landowners
were declared subject to appropriation. Model farms were exempt but other
properties were vulnerable roughly on the principle that the larger the estate and
the lower the degree o f intensiveness achieved the greater the area subject to
appropriation. Landowners were compensated with 5% twenty-five-year bonds
equivalent to the value o f the land concerned. In fact some 167,000 ha were
appropriated outright; another 25,000 ha were made up o f‘residual thirds’, that is
tracts of land half o f which the landowners could retain provided they carried
out the necessary improvements on the whole tract. O f the land thus made available
about 1 10,000 ha have been divided into poderi averaging 15 ha and intended
to provide whole-time work for the family, and some 33,000 ha have been
carved into smallholdings averaging 3 ha. A system o f priorities in general
favouring local men already working on the appropriated land as share tenants
(mezzadri), sharecroppers (comparticipanti) or day labourers (braccianti) was
evolved and in cases where applicants were o f equal merit the choice was made by
lot. In fact the vast majority o f applicants were accommodated. The colonists, in
all some 17,000 in the Maremma, are buying their holdings by instalments over
thirty years at 3 | % ; the sum involved covers the cost o f the land plus a proportion
of the cost o f providing the house, buildings, water supphes and other improvements.
To a substantial degree the original targets which included nearly 10,000 new
houses and 1600 km o f roads as well as service stations, reservoirs, aqueducts,
stores, plants for processing wine, fruit, sugar, milk, etc., social centres, churches
and schools, have been achieved. While the traditional interplanted Mediterranean
field and tree crops are still well represented on the new poderi, their
owners are encouraged to devote about half of their acreage to grass and leguminous
fodder (at the expense o f wheat) in the interests o f veal, pork and milk
production. Sugar beet and the specialized cultivation o f vegetables, fruit and
tobacco, where possible with the aid o f sprinkler irrigation, are now appearing
significantly in the land-use.
Inevitably the Land Reform and its associated activities have been the object
of severe criticism. On economic grounds it is asserted that the vast sums involved
are disproportionate to the probable increase in production; that the
schemes are bureaucratically top heavy; that the co-operatives are too rigidly
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