Mountain farming is a form of sustainable agriculture, a perfect union between people and nature. It is vitally important for the land, biodiversity and the local economy.
Mountain communities feel like places slightly outside of time. Even farming in these landscapes, characterised by vast forests and bare, wind-swept heights, has retained its genuine character — shaped by the laws of nature rather than those of the market.
Mountain areas are territories in which farming plays a fundamental role in the proper management of the land, the conservation of biodiversity, the fight against abandonment and the local economy. The 2014 edition of the World Mountain Day was dedicated precisely to mountain farming and its fundamental role in sustainable food systems.
Read also: 11 December is World Mountain Day
Almost half of our country's surface area (47.5 per cent) is covered by mountains, and the number of mountain farms that must contend with difficult, specific conditions — such as low temperatures and a shorter growing season — amounts to 31 per cent of the total number of farms nationwide.
This type of farming, characterised by family-run management, has represented a form of sustainable development for centuries — a perfect union between people and nature. Despite its importance and its traditions, mountain farming is in decline owing to population growth, economic globalisation, urbanisation and the ongoing depopulation of mountain areas in favour of cities.
At the same time, these changes can represent opportunities for development. People living in mountain areas can diversify their income by engaging in new activities such as sustainable tourism, the sale of local products given added value by "mountain product" labelling, and crafts. Sound environmental policy management — combining investment with land protection — could improve farmers' access to resources and increase their capacity to generate income.
The defence of mountains and of the sustainable development associated with them is nonetheless gaining ever greater traction within the international community, and the establishment of a dedicated day is one more opportunity to reconnect with a thread that ties us to a past of cultivated fields in places where even tractors cannot reach.