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Preserving Characteristics of the Agricultural Landscape through Agri-Environmental Policies: The Case of Cultivation Terraces in GreeceThanasis Kizosa; Maria Koulourib; Hristos Vakoufarisb; Maria Psarroua
a University of the Aegean, Geography, University Hill, Mytilene, Greece b Department ofEnvironmental Studies, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece
Online publication date: 29 November 2010
To cite this Article Kizos, Thanasis , Koulouri, Maria , Vakoufaris, Hristos and Psarrou, Maria(2010) 'PreservingCharacteristics of the Agricultural Landscape through Agri-Environmental Policies: The Case of Cultivation Terraces inGreece', Landscape Research, 35: 6, 577 — 593To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2010.519434URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2010.519434
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Preserving Characteristics of theAgricultural Landscape throughAgri-Environmental Policies: The Caseof Cultivation Terraces in Greece
THANASIS KIZOS*, MARIA KOULOURI**,HRISTOS VAKOUFARIS** & MARIA PSARROU**University of the Aegean, Geography, University Hill, Mytilene, Greece **University of the Aegean,
Department of Environmental Studies, University Hill, Mytilene, Greece
ABSTRACT Landscapes are made from different components and elements, some of which arecharacterized through their presence and patterns. The assessment of this character is performedvia the identification of landscape characteristics. For agricultural landscapes, such character-istics can be natural elements or elements of farming systems. Their preservation can be of greatimportance in Europe today, and agri-environmental measures have been used towards this goal.One such characteristic in Greece is cultivation terraces, today widely neglected, as thecultivations they supported are abandoned or modernized. This paper discusses the effectivenessof an agri-environmental policy measure for the reconstruction of cultivation terraces in Greece,with regard to existing practices of farmers. A picture for the whole country is presented andfarmers’ practices are discussed with greater detail through research with farmers that have beensupported on the island of Lesvos. Findings from Lesvos reveal that only part-time and ‘hobby’farmers have participated and that they acknowledge the productive, conservation and symbolicvalue of terraces. In this context, although these farmers are actively farming the fields, terracesappear to have lost their original functional role in agricultural production and they are mainlymaintained as a decorative element of the form of the landscape by farmers who can afford suchconcerns.
KEY WORDS: Cultivation terraces, agri-environmental policy, landscape change, landscapecharacter, Greece
1. Introduction
One of the uses of the concept of landscape is for the description and understandingof the interactions between society and environment from different disciplines(Farina, 2006), resulting in different definitions (Olwig, 1996; Farina, 2006). Apartfrom scientific definitions, landscape has been incorporated recently to policyformulation (Rossler, 2006; Turner, 2006). In such approaches (e.g. the European
Correspondence Address: Thanasis Kizos, University of the Aegean, Geography, University Hill, Mytilene,
81100 Greece. Email: [email protected]
Landscape Research,Vol. 35, No. 6, 577–593, December 2010
ISSN 0142-6397 Print/1469-9710 Online/10/060577-17 � 2010 Landscape Research Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2010.519434
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Landscape Convention) it is recognized that all landscapes have a certain ‘quality’, a‘‘distinct, recognisable and consistent pattern of elements in the landscape thatmakes one landscape different from another’’ (The Countryside Agency and ScottishNatural Heritage, 2002, p. 8), which is usually referred to as ‘landscape character’.Landscape character does not evaluate landscapes (which are ‘better’ or ‘worse’): itmerely demonstrates their differences according to the presence of landscapecomponents, elements or features, or their combinations (Wascher, 2005). Theassessment of landscape character (LCA) is to identify landscape character areas andtypes through the systematic analysis of these natural and social landscape attributes(Kima & Pauleit, 2007), while a different ‘natural landscape character’ is suggestedby Brabyn (2005) and a ‘visual character’ is suggested by Tveit et al. (2006). LCA hasbeen tested in a number of practical applications (Bishop & Phillips, 2004) andcurrently applied in many different national or regional contexts (Wascher, 2005;Kima & Pauleit, 2007) and is performed via the identification of landscape‘characteristics’ that are ‘‘typical combinations of elements, design shapes andproportions’’ (Jessel, 2006, p. 154) and which assign a specific character to alandscape, make it special or unique.
For agricultural landscapes, such characteristics can be a variety of naturalelements (geology, soil formations, local relief, etc.) or elements of the farmingsystems (land uses, management practices, specific elements, etc.). Their preservationis in general an issue of great importance in Europe today, as some very prominentagricultural landscapes with very important ecological functions and characteristicshave been recently degraded or destroyed as a result of the abandonment or changeof the farming systems that created and maintained them in the past.
The main policy instrument that has been used in Europe for preserving thesecharacteristics has been the agri-environmental measures of the CommonAgricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU. They were introduced in the beginning ofthe 1990s as accompanying measures of the CAP, in order to reduce the impact fromagriculture to the environment and support extensive cultivation and animalhusbandry systems. By the end of the 1990s they were integrated with the ‘secondpillar’ of the CAP, rural development. Member States could design, implement andevaluate their own, under the common rules of a single Regulation (Reg. 1257/99 for2000 – 2006).
Participation in such programs depends on a number of characteristics of thefarmer and the farm such as the age of the farmer, his/her education, the length ofresidency in the area and the ‘farming philosophy’ among others (Wilson, 1996).Morris and Potter (1995) develop the typology of the adoption of such policymeasures that Wilson (1996, pp. 128–130) uses, arriving at six groups of potential‘adopters’, according to two dimensions: eligibility for the measure and attitudes ofthe farmer. These six groups include ‘active adopters’, ‘passive adopters’,‘conditional non-adopters’, ‘resistant non-adopters’, potential adopters that are‘precluded from participation’ and conservation oriented farmers on holdings ofmarginal eligibility. Fish et al. (2003, p. 23) distinguish four categories for adopters,or ‘styles of participation’ (opportunist, modifying, catalysing and enthusiastic)and four styles of non-participation (disempowered, disinterested, abstainingand sceptical). All researchers recognize the importance of farmers’ opinions andattitudes in the success of such agri-environmental schemes, since the desire and
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drive for the preservation of historic landscape features on farms is always related tocomplex reasons and rarely on financial motivation alone. Such cases in theliterature include the case of hay meadows discussed by Riley (2006) and placed intoa historic context as well as a financial policy oriented one. Kaljonen (2006) discussesanother case in Finland, Paniagua Mazorra (2001) in Spain, Fish et al. (2003) in theUK and Falconer (2000) reviews many cases around Europe. All these casesdemonstrate the complexity of farmers’ decisions and the diversity of their viewsconcerning environmental conservation and protection (see also Bohnet et al., 2003).The case discussed here, cultivation terraces reconstruction, differs from most agri-environmental schemes, as it concerns a specific historic landscape characteristic thatis not only unique and of great cultural value, but is also very important locally forconservation (hay meadows offer some resemblance, Riley, 2006).
In Greece, the initial implementation of agri-environmental measures in the 1990swas belated, as these were a novelty for Greek agricultural policy (Louloudis &Beopoulos, 2002). In the 2000 – 2006 programming period, 17 measures that differthematically and geographically were approved by the European Commission.Geographically, some cover the whole territory of Greece (e.g. measure 3.12 on thereconstruction of terraces) and others specific areas. Thematically, most measurestarget the reduction of inputs and favour the landscape character of certainagricultural landscapes of Greece, that is, specific land management practices thathave shaped characteristic landscapes (olive groves of Amfissa and vineyards ofSantorini) or specific landscape characteristics (hedgerows in Evros and Ioanninaareas and terraces all over Greece). With the exception of organic farming, budgetswere pretty modest and as a result the number of beneficiaries and the size of landcovered are limited. Compared to the implementation in other EU countries (Onateet al., 2000), implementation in Greece appears as more fragmented and less targetedtowards specific areas or problems or indeed the landscape.
For the ‘traditional’ Greek agricultural landscape, one such landscape characteristicis cultivation terraces, which are the relatively level surfaces that are created uponsloping areas via the construction of a dry stone wall. They affect to a large extent thestructures and functions of the landscape and are in general one of the most easilyrecognizable landscape elements.1 Besides creating cultivation space, terraces arevaluable for the conservation of natural resources, as they reduce the speed of surfacerunoff water, control erosion if properly maintained, increase water penetration in thesoil, increase root penetration and use abundant rocks (Rackham & Moody, 1996).Today in most places they are neglected and slowly collapsing. A recent study on soilerosion threats in the EU (Van-Camp et al., 2004), recognizes that terraced landscapesin the area face crucial problems due to (p. 209): ‘‘(i) the extensive abandonment ofmountain rural areas and therefore of their soil and water conservation structures and(ii) intensification in modern agriculture that leads to land levelling operationsdestroying the structure of the terraces’’. The study realizes that measures for terraceconservation ‘‘may not be able to cope with the extensive abandonment of mountainrural areas’’ and ‘‘the identification of degradation hot spots and sites of particularinterest is needed’’ (Van-Camp et al., 2004, p. 210). In Greece, terraces are in general,but not exclusively, found in the south and on the islands.
In this paper, the results of the implementation of an agri-environmental measurefor the reconstruction of terraces in Greece are presented as an example of a policy
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measure seeking to preserve characteristics of the agricultural landscape. This ispursued via the investigation of the farming practices (especially concerning terraces)of the participants of the measure, the motivations behind their participation in thelight of the typologies presented above and their views on the functions and values ofterraces. In the next section, the methods used are presented, followed by the resultsof the implementation of a Greek agri-environmental measure for reconstructingterraces for the whole country and with greater detail for farmers that have beenfinancially supported on the island of Lesvos.
2. Methods and Data
To answer the questions this paper addresses, two data sources are used:
a) Official data from the files2 of the beneficiaries of the agri-environmentalmeasure (3.12) for terrace reconstruction to prevent soil erosion. This measureof e35 million total budget for the 2000 – 2006 period (it will be continued in the2007 – 2013 period), launched for the first time in 2004 with a second call in 2006for two months at a time. The beneficiaries are farmers with farms in terracedareas that can receive as much as e35/m3 of terraces, derived by the maximumsum per ha (e4.5/ha for grazing lands, e6/ha for arable land and e9/ha forpermanent crops that correspond to building of 12.85, 17 and 25.7 m3/harespectively). All farms that participate in agri-environmental measures receivean overall amount of money per hectare and if beneficiaries of the particularmeasure are supported by other measures as well, the amount per hectare isreduced by the amount already received. The data include the Prefecture wherethe farm is located, the type of land use (arable, permanent crops, grazinglands), the area size, the fields and the cubic meters of terraces for each farmerfor each of the two implementation periods in 2004 and 2006.
A total number of 619 beneficiaries were accepted (292 in the first and 327 inthe second call) with 1377.6 ha of total farm land or 2.2 ha/farm (median at 1.2ha and minimum value 0.04 ha, with the national farm size average at 4.4 ha/farm). Farms are located in 23 Prefectures (out of the total 52 Greek Prefectures,Figure 1 and Table 1), most on Lesvos (18.7%, all of which in the second call),Samos (14.2%) and Cyclades (12.3%), all of which are island Prefectures.Regarding land use, most terraced areas are on permanent crops (tree crops orvines) and only in few Prefectures the rest of the land uses are encountered(Table 1), an expected result, as in grazing lands, terraces collapse faster due tograzing, while most terraced arable land is abandoned. In agreement with thegeneral feature of Greek agriculture, the farms are usually fragmented into twoor more plots (of 0.76 ha/ plot average size), with 38.6% of the farms on a singlefield, 61.6% on one or two plots, three-quarters on one, two or three plots andeven a small number of cases (2%) with more than 10 plots. These fields may belocated at long distances apart and this fact raises questions on the effectivenessof the support in terms of restoring continuous terraced landscapes. The averagevolume of the terraces is 95 m3/ha, but again with great diversity (14% lowerthan 4 m3/ha and 48.5% higher than 120 m3/ha), as local styles and slopegradients yield different terrace densities and landscapes. The reconstruction of
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Figure 1. Beneficiaries of the terraces reconstruction program in Greece per Prefecture andcall; and total number of beneficiaries and sample ones on the island of Lesvos per settlement(eight beneficiaries living in Athens were excluded).
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Table
1.Distributionoftheterracedareasofthebeneficiaries’farm
sper
Prefecture
andlanduse,averagevolumeofterracesin
theirfarm
sand
percentageoftheaveragevolumethatcanbesupported
bytheprogram
Prefecture
1stcall
2ndcall
Total
%Average
area(ha)
Permanent
crops(N
)Arable
land(N
)Grazing
lands(N
)
Mean
volume/ha
(m3/ha)
%of
average
volumethat
canbe
supported
bytheprogram
Argolida
34
10
44
7.1
2.80
40
10
182
31.3
Arkadia
99
1.5
4.57
72
223
111.7
Arta
43
71.1
1.93
72
34
75.6
Dodekanisa
10
616
2.6
2.19
15
21
98
26.2
Zakinthos
16
71.1
2.13
773
35.2
Kavala
20
727
4.4
1.90
27
108
23.8
Kerkira
11
112
1.9
1.17
11
11
101
25.4
Korinthos
33
61.0
4.31
35
291
28.2
Cyclades
76
76
12.3
1.82
70
59
76
33.8
Lakonia
512
17
2.7
1.51
13
41
111
23.2
Larisa
14
12
26
4.2
1.93
19
52
110
23.4
Lasithi
22
.3.94
11
91
28.2
Lesvos
116
116
18.7
3.71
111
214
83
31.0
Lefkada
20
14
34
5.5
1.07
33
51
107
24.0
Messinia
42
17
59
9.5
1.64
59
103
25.0
Peiraia
19
11
30
4.8
2.70
28
2110
23.4
Rethim
no
619
25
4.0
2.22
22
14
108
23.8
Samos
21
67
88
14.2
1.24
88
1116
22.2
Trikalon
22
4.6
.53
2129
19.9
Fokida
22
.3.22
249
52.4
Halkidiki
11
.29.25
11
28
91.8
Hanion
36
91.5
1.84
988
29.2
Hios
11
2.3
1.35
2128
20.1
Total
292
327
619
100.0
2.22
577
46
41
95
27.1
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a limited percentage of this volume can be supported by the program (27%approximately on average, Table 1).
b) Interviews with beneficiary farmers from the island of Lesvos. The face-to-faceinterviews were conducted with the use of a semi-structured questionnaire togather information on their economic and farming profiles (i.e. the number ofthe members of each household, their age, occupations and incomes from eachsource they declared, the time each member spent on the farms, the workers theyemployed, the size of the farm, the number of fields and the managementpractices) and investigate their practices relating to the maintenance of terracesbefore the support (if, when and why they had maintained them in the past) andtheir views on the value of terraces in the landscape of Lesvos. These data areused to investigate the motivations behind their participation in the measure inrelation with their practices and characteristics. Most of the opinion questionsasked were pre-codified in Likert-type scales, while some opinions and thecauses of the destruction of terraces were recorded in open-ended questions.Descriptive statistics and cross tabulations to estimate statistical significantrelationships between the variables were used to analyse the data. From theoverall 116 beneficiaries in 2006, 30 were selected via systematic sampling (fromthe list of the beneficiaries one of every four was selected and if he/she was notavailable then the next one was selected excluding eight beneficiaries that residepermanently in Athens3) and were interviewed during January – March 2007.
The case study area, Lesvos Island, is one of the largest islands in the Aegean(1632.8 km2), with a population of 89,935 (in 2001). The main settlement is thecapital Mytilini (36,196 inhabitants in 2001, or roughly 40% of the islands’population including the immediate suburbs). The number of farms has reducedrecently (20%, from 22,799 in 1971 to 18,132 in 2001), but agriculture is still quiteimportant, especially in rural areas. Kizos and Spilanis (2004) distinguish threeagricultural landscape zones (Figure 1): i) the grazing lands zone, consisting mainlyof barren grazing lands, where deteriorating terraces (due to grazing of sheep andgoats) are encountered, along with many animal husbandry constructions (barns,stables, watering ponds) and dry stonewalls; ii) the olive plantation zone, whereterraces are the dominant element of a continuous terraced olive groves landscape.Many neglected or collapsing terraces lying on abandoned or cultivated fields areencountered, but there are also some that are maintained very efficiently andprofessionally; iii) the intermediate zone, with elements of both other zones andwhere (some maintained, others neglected or collapsing) terraces are a dominantelement of the landscape as well. Some typical terraced landscapes found in thesezones are depicted in Figure 2.
3. Policy and Management of Preserving Cultivation Terraces on Lesvos
Overall, 116 farmers on Lesvos were accepted during the first and the secondperiods of the measure, the single highest number of beneficiaries (Table 1). Duringthe first call there were no applications, as the measure was new and—according tothe respondents and our experience—poorly supported by farmer consultants(usually they guide farmers into such measures and none from the ones we talked to
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had a clear idea of the particular one) or the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives orthe Directorate of Rural Development and Food of Lesvos. Moreover, the fact thatthose that already are beneficiaries of other agri-environmental measures (especiallyorganic farming) can receive only a small fraction of the overall amount of moneyper hectare is limiting. In the sample, almost equal numbers of farmers ‘discovered’the call themselves through the Internet, or were informed either by others alreadyapplying or by more typical sources (local municipalities or farm consultants).
Most of the beneficiaries live in Mytilini (30%), followed by those who live in thesmall town of Agiassos (14%), the rest being distributed around the island(Figure 1), and 3.5% of the beneficiaries living in Athens and having farms on theisland. These ‘absentee’ beneficiaries are typical examples of a common phenomenonin rural areas of Greece, as many out-migrants that live today in urban areas stillhold close ties with their ‘homelands’, keep houses there, keep farms, often visit, votethere and even participate in conservation and investment policy measures (seeDamianakos, 2002, for more examples and discussion). In the sample of theresearch, most beneficiaries are men (87%) of middle age (53.6 years old on average,none younger than 38 and none older than 70) with households of 3.8 members onaverage (14% are two member and 28% more than four member households).Geographically, most live, as expected, in the olives and intermediate landscapezones, but this spatial allocation is only indicative, as most of the beneficiaries in thesample have plots scattered in more than one settlement. One beneficiary that lives inthe capital and is a civil worker (so is his wife) applied for ‘‘the fields that my father
Figure 2. Typical terraced landscapes of Lesvos: A) olive plantation on parallel terraces (notvery common); B) grazing land for sheep on braided terraces (former arable land, verycommon on the grazing lands zone); C) olive plantation on pocket terraces (around individualtrees, very common in the olive plantation and intermediate zones); D) olive plantation oncombination of braided and pocket terraces (common in the olive plantation and intermediatezones).
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gave me in Gera [approx. 20 km from the city] and my mother’s fields in Vatousa[approx. 80 km from the city] . . . Personally I am more interested in the ones in Gerathat I will pass to my two sons and that have more value as they are close to theroad.’’ This is something typical for most owners: separate fields are considered andinherited as separate assets and can be important for the reasons that householdsmay choose (or not) to participate in this measure. Answers such as the one abovesuggest that some beneficiaries are ‘active adopters’ but for reasons that exceedtypical conservation thinking and encompass economic and social issues andconcerns as well.
Regarding occupation, only one of the beneficiaries in the sample (3.4%) hasdeclared being a farmer, the rest being mostly civil servants (33.4%), professionals inservices (30%), pensioners (20%), employees (6.6%) and housewives, students (3.4%each). All households in the sample have at least one source of income off farm(including pensions) and most of them (63.4%) have two sources of off-farm income(the maximum number is four different off-farm income sources), the majority fromcivil servants (30%) and employees (23.3%). The beneficiary that declared being afarmer as her major occupation is 48 years old in a four-member household with ahusband of 50 that also works in the 7.5 ha farm they hold (their two children arestill students). The husband also works in services, but they both identify themselvesas ‘farmers’, even though at least half of their family income comes from off-farmsources. The cases of housewives and students refer to households that have chosento have their fields ‘written’ (i.e. passed, inherited or donated) on the member thatdoes not hold an off-farm full time occupation to make them more easily eligible forsubsidies. Regarding farm work (i.e. all the work that the management of the farmrequires, either by the members of the household or by hired workers, usually foreignimmigrants), 40% declare that they do not use workers and do everythingthemselves; 46.7% say that they work in the farm occasionally and hire workersto help them during harvest and in some cases in pruning; and only 13.3% that theydo not work in their farm at all anymore. The latter four cases are owners older than65 that only supervise hired workers.
Regarding farm and household incomes (Table 2), farm incomes of the farms inthe sample are low in general, as 62% have declared farm incomes lower than e5000,34.5% farm incomes of e5000 to e10,000 and only one farm (3.5%) makes e10,000to e15,000, in agreement with the official tax data of 2003 (i.e. the money thatfarmers declare for taxation at the end of the year), which raise the average incomesfrom farming on the island at e8129, but with 50% of the tax payers declaring
Table 2. Farm and household incomes for households in the sample
Farmincomes (e)
Household incomes (e)
10.000–15.000 15.000–20.000 20.000–25.000 425.000 % (N)
55.000 11.1% 11.1% 38.9% 38.9% 62% (18)5.000–10.000 10% 40% 30% 20% 34.5% (10)10.000–15.000 100% 3.5% (1)% (N) 10.3% (3) 20.7% (6) 34.5% (10) 34.5% (10) (29)
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farming incomes lower than e6000. Moreover, farm incomes are not correlated withthe occupation of the beneficiary or farm work, but are correlated positively andweakly with the size of the farm (Spearman’s r¼ .395, s¼ .031, N¼ 30). These lowfarm incomes are unsurprising considering that all households are part-time farmersand have off-farm incomes. It has to be noted though that some declarations of lowfarm incomes could be underestimated. Several explanations can be offered: one isrelated to extensive tax evasion in Greece that has made the declaration of actualincomes a sensitive issue even in such anonymous researches (one respondent thatruns his own small firm laughed at this point of the interview remarking that ‘‘I hopeyou won’t go to the tax service with these data’’). Another explanation could berelated to the type of income that some households expect from their farms: some donot expect incomes at all, but olive oil for home consumption, which is an indirectincome but it is not ‘officially’ accounted as an income source; others may expectmore ‘official’ (i.e. monetary) incomes. Finally, production and incomes are relatedto the amount and the type of work one is willing to invest in the farm. Since allhouseholds are part-timers, some view farm work as a hobby and perhaps income isnot their main interest in their farm, but instead they prefer to have a part-timeoccupation ‘close to nature’ and/or ‘preserve’ their fields for their children, sinceolive fields are cultural as well as economic assets (‘my father gave me these fields andI want to pass them to my son’, a civil worker remarked).
Household incomes are significantly higher, with 34.5% of the households makingmore than e25,000 (households with two civil servants are among those with thehighest incomes) and only 10% making less than e15,000. These incomes aresignificantly higher than the average family income from the tax records of 2003 thatstands at e11,167 (only 10% have declared tax income higher than e25,000),indicating that the beneficiaries are of the highest income class of the island.Household incomes are not correlated with farm incomes, the employment of thebeneficiary or the size of the farm, but there is a statistically significant relationshipwith farm work (Pearson’s Chi-square¼ 12.67, s¼ 0.049, N¼ 30), with those thatdeclare that work in the farm occasionally to make the highest incomes. A closercomparison of farm and household incomes reveals that only one household in thesample has declared farm incomes that are of an income class lower than householdincome (farm income in the e5000 to e10,000 class and household income in thee10,000 to e15,000 class). In all the other households, their household incomes are atleast two income classes higher than farm incomes. This is a clear indication thatpractically none of the beneficiaries in the sample are professional farmers.
Most of the farms have olive plantations (90%) of size 4.21 ha on average in 4.26plots on average, the rest being grazing lands (6.7%, of 10.05 ha on average) andother tree cultivations (3.3%, of 1.4 ha on average). In all cases the farms are active,even if the beneficiaries or their households are not themselves working on the farmand supervise hired immigrant workers. Their practices include (Table 3) pruning (in93% of the farms), ploughing of the olives understorey (31% of the farms),fertilization (in 38% of the farms), chemical plant protection (in 38% of the farms),irrigation (in 45% of the farms), and 24% of the farms have at least one organic plot.The combinations of these practices indicate that the beneficiaries in the sample areactually farming their farms (Table 3), even if they keep their practices to a minimum(mostly pruning and picking of the olives). It has to be noted here that the extensive
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Table
3.Farm
ingpractices
combinationsforhouseholdsin
thesample
Combination
ofpractices
N%
Pruning
Ploughingof
understorey
Fertilisation
Chem
icalplant
protection
Irrigation
Organic
Mixed
arable
cultivation
Grazing
(number
offarm
s)
14
13.8
�1
24
13.8
��
��
1
33
10.3
��
�1
43
10.3
��
2
52
6.9
��
�6
26.9
��
1
72
6.9
��
�8
26.9
��
��
2
91
3.4
�1
10
13.4
��
��
1
11
13.4
��
��
1
12
13.4
��
�1
13
13.4
��
�14
13.4
��
1
15
13.4
��
Total
29
100
27
911
11
13
713
%oftotal
93.1
31.0
37.9
37.9
44.8
24.1
0.0
44.8
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cultivation of olive trees, which require relatively limited cultivation practices andinputs such as irrigation, fertilization and plant protection from diseases and pests, ishelpful in this regard. This finding partly agrees with the findings of Kizos andKoulouri (2010) on the management of olive plantations on Lesvos, that found thata number of olive farmers, especially part-time farmers, manage their oliveplantations by this minimum practices style. Finally, the majority of the farms arenot grazed (53%), the rest being grazed by sheep and goat (36.6%), horses (3.3%)and animals that enter the fields to graze, with or without the owners’ consent. Tenyears ago, more sheep and goats grazed the farms in the sample (50% of the farmswere grazed). The case of practices is again indicative of different production ‘modes’of the households of the sample. Even if all are part-timers and actively farming theirfarms, some farm more intensively than others, with workers or on their own. Thisfact seems again important for the reasons that households may choose (or not) toparticipate in this measure. Clearly, for some households incomes are not a veryimportant issue (although of course they welcome the support of the measure), butconservation may not also be the prime motive behind participation and other socialissues appear to be involved.
Terraces in the farms in the sample are, according to the owners, of averagequality. The fact that terraces in different plots are of different quality makes anoverall assessment of their quality very difficult. Most of the beneficiaries in thesample say that they have maintained at least a part of their terraces in the past(60%). The last time they maintained their terraces could be a recent date (up to fiveyears for half of those that say that have maintained their terraces), or a decade back(for 33.3% of those that say that have maintained their terraces), or up to 25 yearsago. Despite having applied for such a measure, 16.7% of the beneficiaries say thatthey will not maintain their terraces in the future, all because they are not verysatisfied with the measure so far (in total 56.7% of the beneficiaries are not satisfied,at least for the time being). Dissatisfaction is partly justified, considering that aformal requirement is that the action should extend over a time period of five yearsand they should maintain parts of their terraces each year. Most of the beneficiarieswe talked to claim rightly that this is financially destructive, as they have to payworkers each year, and useless in practice, as at most two years would be more thanenough: ‘‘it is very hard to find a craftsman for the terraces; the one I found wasbooked for six months as many people build with stone. What can I say to them?Make some terraces now and come back next year to make some more? This issimply not possible’’, remarked a retired agronomist. ‘‘It is very expensive tomaintain [terraces] on your own and this [measure] is welcome, although I don’tknow what they will do with the five year thing’’, a professional living in the capitalclaims.
Regarding the landscape of terraced fields, a retired agronomist focused more onthe soil and moisture benefits of the reconstruction: ‘‘Have you seen how much soil asingle terrace can retain? [after one of us answers ‘yes’ he continues] All this soil getswashed away if the wall is broken. They made a dust road under the slope in one ofmy fields and some terraces were broken there and I watched the soil get washedaway each year.’’ It has to be noted though that no other respondent spontaneouslymentioned conservation or ecological or environmental or even productive concernslinked with the reconstruction of terraces. Most focused more on social issues,
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that is, the ‘proper’ appearance of the fields, with cleared olive trees understoreys,pruned and managed trees, preserved terraces and fenced, in an image of ‘goodfarmship’, a hard working and ‘tidy’ farmer that takes good care of his/her land. Atypical response stresses that ‘‘it is much better now that the terraced are remade[showing some pictures before and after their maintenance] and the fields look more‘orderly’ and more like fields’’ according to a civil worker that works his fields withthe help of workers and was enthusiastic on the measure and kept on telling us thatthe reconstruction of terraces was ‘‘badly needed’’ and should be broader and formore beneficiaries. For some others, the financial motive was also important: aprofessional constructor that uses stone craftsmen in his non-farm occupationclaims that ‘‘the money is not that much but it is OK, especially if they let us managethe work as we see fit [referring to the five year plan] . . . for someone like mewho can not apply for other measures since I am not considered a farmer this is agood thing’’.
Many more beneficiaries in the sample seem to be familiar with the functions ofterraces in their fields and their opinions are very positive towards them and theirmaintenance. In the Likert-type opinion questions, all of them agree that terraces arean important part of the local landscape and most (76.6%) recognize that terracestoday are of lower quality than in the past. All agree that terraces ‘‘protect soil fromerosion’’; all but one that they are ‘‘part of the local cultural heritage’’ and allconsider that their degradation and destruction will change the landscapesignificantly. Most of the beneficiaries (70%) do not feel that terraces ‘‘get in theway of management practices’’ in their fields (10% say that they do ‘‘get in the way’’and the rest neither agree nor disagree). Therefore, it seems that even if conservationis not the prime motive for most, it is still a part of their overall thinking for many ofthe beneficiaries.
Finally, regarding the reasons terraces are destroyed, most say that heavy rains areone of the reasons (76.6%; e.g. ‘‘sometimes there comes a really heavy rain and thenthe real damage is done’’), the second most common answer being the ‘‘naturaldegradation’’ of the terrace due to its age (43.3%; e.g. ‘‘what do you expect after somany years? It will be destroyed little by little’’), followed by grazing of the field(36.6%; e.g. ‘‘sheep can make damage, but goats are the worst, they make openingsand walk up and down the seti [terrace, in local dialect]’’). This particular answer wasstressed very much from farmers that have animals passing through their fields andgrazing them, often without their permission: ‘‘I don’t have a fence, I should put oneup, they keep passing through the field with the animals and it is [the plot] far away,there is nothing you can do.’’ Only 13.3% of the beneficiaries in the sample considerthe insufficient maintenance of terraces as a reason for their collapse, close to thepercentage of those that claim that the way a terrace is built is very important (10%).In the many different combinations heavy rains were most of the time the first factornoted.
4. Discussion and Conclusions
Cultivation terraces are landscape elements that assign character to a landscape.Extended terraced landscapes indicate local knowledge of soil and water conditionsin an area and particular stone craftsmanship apart from time and money
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investment. Such terrace systems can be used for characterizing a landscape (e.g.Mucher et al. [2003] that create a first attempt for a European-wide charactertypology) in a field where Greece has limited experience so far. In this context, themeasure for reconstructing and maintaining terraces is positive, as it recognizes theirpotential and their ecological and symbolic role in landscape characterization andassessment, while pursuing environmental goals.
Results of the implementation reveal that the overall agri-environmental measuresstructure creates some obstacles for potential beneficiaries with a) the fixed overallamount for the beneficiaries restricting those that already participate in anotherprogram; b) the fixed time period of five years for making the terraces; and c) thedelay of its first call (in the spring of 2004). Especially since regular maintenance isnot annual, the particular structure of the measure contradicts farmers’ practices andcommon sense. At the same time, the measure lacks regional differentiation, due tothe lack of knowledge for presence and style of terraces. The findings suggest thatterraces around Greece vary in styles, structures and craftsmanship and our personalexperience verifies these differences. However, it appears that the implementationagencies are more interested in the formal requirements of the program (financialtransparency, accountability, etc.) rather than spatial differences and its actualimpact. This is a common problem of agri-environmental programs with a shorthistory in Greece (Louloudis & Beopoulos, 2002) and so far their content andpractices seem to be ‘distant’ for some farmers.
The most important finding from Lesvos reveals that part-time and ‘hobby’farmers are mostly, if not exclusively, attracted to this program. Regarding thetypologies of such agri-environmental measures adopters, farmers of the sample canall be considered as ‘active adopters’, as their attitudes towards the measure are verypositive and since this is the first time the particular measure has been applied, theycan also be considered pioneers. Most of the farmers of the sample can also becategorized in the ‘opportunist’ participation style of Fish et al.’s (2003) typology, inwhich the practices of the measure are already existing practices of the farm and themeasure is viewed as a ‘‘calculated way of increasing net income on existingpractices’’, while ‘‘expressing an interest in the ideas and goals of the scheme’’ (p. 30).For some, the category of ‘catalysing participation’ also applies, in whichconservation work is undertaken ‘‘as part of agreement that would otherwise haveproved financially prohibitive’’ that regards the practices involved as ‘‘supplemen-tary and desirable, rather than integral and necessary’’ (p. 32). None have modifiedtheir existing practices as a result of the participation in the project (‘modifyingparticipation’ style) and it seems that very few if any can be considered as employinga style of ‘enthusiastic participation’ in the sense that they ‘‘gained knowledge aboutthe nature and management of their landscapes through the scheme’’ (p. 32). As Fishet al. (2003, p. 23) assert, these styles of participation ‘‘are by no means mutuallyexclusive: land managers frequently take different approaches with respect todifferent parts of their farms and different types of landscape feature’’ (p. 30).
Another reason for the participation of ‘hobby’ farmers can be the fact that theyare not eligible for most of the rest of the actions of rural development measures inGreece. At the same time, ‘professional’ farmers theoretically have another outlet tofinance terraces maintenance: financing of farm investments through the rest of therural development measures, with financing percentages that can reach 68% of the
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total cost for young farmers in Less Favoured Areas. A brief and exploratory look atthe files of these investments indicates that very few choose to include terraces in theinvestments they undertake. Some probably regard terrace maintenance as afinancial burden and not an investment that can help in production, as most of thenew functions of modern farming are not ‘compatible’ with terraces. Therefore, sincethe rules of participation exclude very few of the total farming population (the exactnumber is unknown), farmers that have not participated in the measure can beconsidered as ‘disinterested’ in the Fish et al. (2003) typology due to the low amountof money for the work involved and the restriction for the total amount per farmerfor those that are already participating in another measure.
At the same time, some of the many part-time farmers on the island, with high off-farm incomes, can afford to care about terraces, and actions like the one discussedhere are very well suited. However, the findings indicate that these part-time farmersare actively farming their farms and this seems to be a strong driving force behindapplying for this program. They also acknowledge the symbolic value of terraces, asthey recognize that they characterize the landscape of Lesvos (even if they seem toconfuse causes and results, as they regard the collapse of terraces as a result of rains,while the actual result is the lack of their maintenance due to abandonment). In thiscontext, terraces appear to have lost part of their original functional role inproduction and are maintained as a ‘decorative’ element in the landscape by farmersthat can ‘afford’ such concerns.
Therefore, agri-environmental measures for preserving agricultural landscapeelements with environmental functions, such as the one examined here, can be moreeffective if they provide motives to farmers for adopting practices that conserve theseelements and not by assisting the preservation of the form of the landscape. With thisstructure the purely financial motivation that current agri-environmental measuresemploy could be ‘bypassed’ and reward the outcomes of the practices in terms ofenvironmental services they provide. This structure is possible only by understandingthe original farmer practices that have created this landscape in the past and attemptto assign to these elements a new role in modern farming practices, as only if they arefunctional they will be maintained without financial assistance.
Notes
1. Terraces are classified in three major types (Rackham &Moody, 1996): step (in straight lines or parallel
to contours), braided (that zigzag the slope) and pocket (around individual trees). The first two types
are used for most land uses (arable land, garden crops, tree crops and grazing lands), while the last for
tree crops, mostly olive trees in the Aegean (Grove & Rackham, 2002).
2. Each applicant for participating in the measure submitted an application accompanied by a ‘file’ with
the features of his/her farm (area size, type of land use, ownership contracts), information about the
terraces (volume). We had access to some of the information of these files.
3. Absentee landowners are a reality in rural areas of Greece. Many owners migrated to urban areas or
abroad in the period 1951 – 1981 when rural depopulation reached its apogee in the country, most keeping
part if not all their farms. When the land use includes cultivations such as olive trees or vines, many
absentees still collect the fruits with the use of workers to gain an extra income and/or use the products for
home consumption. On Lesvos, 35% of the population of the island migrated from 1951 to 1991 and
more have moved to the capital. The extent of the land they own is unknown and certainly differs across
the island. According to our experience though, many manage their plantations with workers or with
members of the family still living on the island in exchange for a percentage of the product.
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