Hillside Groves Between Assisi and Spoleto Get Heritage Status

The ini­tia­tive for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and the dynamic con­ser­va­tion of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) was launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2002, in order to safe­guard and pro­mote out­stand­ing land­scapes of aes­thetic beauty that com­bine agri­cul­tural bio­di­ver­sity, resilient ecosys­tems and a valu­able cul­tural her­itage.

There are cur­rently 50 sites in 20 coun­tries described as agri­cul­tural ter­ri­to­ries rep­re­sent­ing mod­els of sus­tain­able agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion. However, the core con­cept of GIAHS is dis­tinct from, and more com­plex than, a con­ven­tional her­itage site or pro­tected area, as each site is ​“a liv­ing, evolv­ing sys­tem of human com­mu­ni­ties in an intri­cate rela­tion­ship with their ter­ri­tory, cul­tural or agri­cul­tural land­scape or bio­phys­i­cal and wider social envi­ron­ment.”

Taking that as a basis, the ter­ri­tory which includes olive groves on the slopes between Assisi and Spoleto was approved and designed as the first GIAHS site in Italy dur­ing the recent meet­ing of the sci­en­tific advi­sory group in charge. (On the same occa­sion, the Geumsan tra­di­tional gin­seng agri­cul­tural sys­tem in the Republic of Korea was also selected).

The appli­ca­tion of this area of Umbria — which is already part of the National Register of his­tor­i­cal rural land­scapes, agri­cul­tural prac­tices and tra­di­tional knowl­edge estab­lished by the Italian Minister of Agriculture — was sub­mit­ted to FAO by a com­mit­tee com­posed of the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Trevi as a fron­trun­ner, Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Campello sul Clitunno and Spoleto, sup­ported by the Umbria Region and Sviluppumbria.

“This is an impor­tant result that we have achieved thanks to the joint com­mit­ment of the munic­i­pal insti­tu­tions of the area,” affirmed the mayor of Trevi, Bernardino Sperandio. ​“Thanks to this recog­ni­tion, our olive trees will attract grow­ing inter­na­tional atten­tion. It will help us to con­sol­i­date the image of this land­scape, which has been appre­ci­ated and approved by the FAO audi­tors dur­ing a series of inspec­tions,” he noted, adding that ​“they under­stood the great value of this land which can now ben­e­fit from the GIAHS recog­ni­tion.”

Among those who took part in draw­ing up the appli­ca­tion dossier, Leonardo Laureti of the Landscape Office Agronomist srl said that this is not only an arrival point but rather a depar­ture point for future gen­er­a­tions.

“Such recog­ni­tion will help to pre­serve the valu­able ele­ments of this area and con­tribute to boost­ing the demand of the extra vir­gin olive oil from this ter­ri­tory, while pro­mot­ing tourism and job cre­ation,” he con­sid­ered, observ­ing how these olive trees are cul­ti­vated accord­ing to knowl­edge and prac­tices which include the use of dif­fer­ent types of ter­rac­ing, cul­ti­va­tion tech­niques and genetic vari­eties that have been main­tained by local com­mu­ni­ties for cen­turies.

“This extra­or­di­nary land­scape com­posed of olive trees has been shaped by the age-old inter­ac­tion of farm­ers with the envi­ron­ment,” Laureti added.

We are talk­ing about an Apennine scenery com­prised of 6,145 hectares (about 15,185 acres) of olive groves sit­u­ated between 200 and 500 meters above sea level, includ­ing almost 1,500,000 olive trees scat­tered among 4,225 olive oil pro­duc­ing com­pa­nies.

Among them is the award-win­ning Azienda Agraria Viola, Best in Class at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition with their organic Viola Costa del Riparo Biologico, suc­cess­fully flanked by the Gold Award-win­ning Viola Colleruita DOP Umbria.

“This recog­ni­tion adds value to our land,” said Marco Viola. ​“Agricultural com­pa­nies like ours are deeply linked to the ter­ri­tory, which we fully respect while we take care of the olive vari­eties which it offers, pro­vid­ing us great sat­is­fac­tion.”

Viola said com­pa­nies like his are for­ever joined with the place they were born, due to spe­cific cul­ti­vars, envi­ron­ment and cli­mate. Their plants of Moraiolo, Frantoio and Leccino are grown in the hilly area of Foligno between 350 and 450 meters above sea level, accord­ing to a code of ethics that man­dates ​“a sense of social respon­si­bil­ity” by which the com­pany is com­mit­ted to guar­an­tee­ing the safety at work of its employ­ees, the qual­ity of the prod­ucts and the respect of the envi­ron­ment,” in tune with the GIAHS’ stan­dards.

They are so con­nected to this region that they share its highs and lows, Viola pointed out, yet high qual­ity con­tin­ues to char­ac­ter­ize their pro­duc­tions. ​“Our plants of Moraiolo react very well to the low win­ter tem­per­a­tures which caused dam­aged else­where, and we are con­fi­dent in a good har­vest,” he con­sid­ered.

“I won­dered why our ances­tors planted the olive groves in such an irra­tional, scat­tered way, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to har­vest, prun­ing, shred­ding, and so on,” the farmer revealed.

“I real­ized that the most man­age­able and flat lands were des­tined for cere­als and other crops like alfalfa for ani­mal feed, and the olive tree was the only cul­ti­va­tion able to adapt to these hills even if it is at the expense of pro­duc­tion. But exactly that choice made this place deeply bonded to, and beau­ti­fully char­ac­ter­ized by the olive trees,” Viola con­cluded.