Olive farming and the environment EFNCP believes that olive
farming should be a model for sustainable land-use in the
Mediterranean region, producing highly-valued foodstuffs while
helping to maintain local communities, landscapes and
biodiversity in marginal areas. But EU policies are failing to
deliver this vision, despite spending over 2,000 million euros
of public money on olive farming each year. Traditional, low-
input types of olive farming are well placed to provide multiple
public benefits, especially in upland areas where they
predominate. Unfortunately this type of farming, mostly on very
small holdings, generates almost no income under the current
market and policy framework. Understandably, farmers intensify
their production in the hope of improved income, or increasingly
they choose abandonment as a simpler option. Both paths lead to
major environmental losses. Abandonment of low-input olive
farming leads to the loss of open habitats of great value for
some of our declining species, such as certa