Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

AGRICULTURE
over four-fifths of her farm units are worked by direct cultivators {coltivatori
diretti). In effect these are family farms the majority o f which are owned wholly
or in part by the peasant, although less than half o f the area involved is held in
consoUdated units (table 9). They are found in a wide variety o f physical conditions,
and although they may sometimes be as large as 15 hectares, holdings o f
between 3 and 8 hectares are more typical. The farm income they provide is
equally diverse; they are most favourably represented in Piedmont, Lombardy
and Veneto (table 8, Padua), usually on the upper plain where there is a large
number o f modest-sized family farms engaged in the production o f field crops,
fruit, vegetables and animal products on a commercial basis. Units of this sort
are also to be found in the Arno valley and the more favoured districts o f the
Centre as well as in Campania, although in this last region farm incomes reflect
the smaller scale o f the holdings. In all these areas various types o f coltura
promiscua, a form o f land use much favoured by the small producer, have long
been practised. The variety o f crops grown spreads the marketing and weather
risks and, if the worst comes to the worst, at least the basic needs o f the family
are provided for. Coltura promiscua can also be a very intensive form o f cultivation,
especially where irrigation is possible, and in the Mediterranean zone its
two-tier cropping (field and tree crops) fits well into the climatic rhythm; the
field crops, mainly autumn sown, depend on the moisture in the topsoil provided
by the cool season rains, while the tree crops can survive the summer drought on
water stored in the subsoil. Yields and quality certainly suffer but the small
farmer, cautious and conservative by nature, hesitates to take the plunge into
specialized commercial production. This is less true o f the dry arboricultural
areas of Apuha and o f the huertas o f Calabria and Sicily, where the direct cultivator
is well represented, but in these instances the peasant is very largely forced
into specialization by the special physical conditions; mixed farming o f the type
practised in Veneto would be impossible on the Murge. As far as small family
farms are concerned, incomes are lowest in the remoter hill and mountain areas,
especially in the Apennines; they are often on marginal land which in a country
less oppressed by rural overpopulation would be devoted to pasture or woodland.
Indeed, not a few o f these farms are now being abandoned. Given the size o f
their holdings most farmers in these less favoured areas have Uttle alternative but
to rely heavily on wheat, a crop which may be unsuited to the physical conditions
but is easy to grow, demands litde capital outlay and has received a degree of
government support. Such is the case in much of the latifondo contadino (p. 189).
For at least forty years successive Italian governments have been very well
disposed towards the small farmer, none more actively than the post-war
Apennines (Terni); the Adriatic Sub-Apennines (Teramo); an area formerly dominated
by latifondi (Foggia); a dry arboriculture zone (Bari); a latifondo contadino area (Potenza);
an intensive Mediterranean polyculture zone (Caserta); a varied Calabrian area (Reggio);
a Sicilian interior province (Enna); and the most typical of the Sardinian provinces
(Nuoro).
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