Global warming, climate change patterns, and socio-economic and landscape disasters caused by olive trees drying out — along with a history of intensive and extractive farming practices — make it super important to try out new ways of doing things that can help the region’s farming, social, and economic scene.

Today, at XFarm Agricoltura Prossima, we are managing two different models of Agroforestry System (AFSs), covering a total of 3.5 hectares.

With ReAges, we are now launching a third pilot project, covering an additional 2 hectares of olive groves, aiming to develop a simple and re-applicable AFSs model, tailored to the agricultural and climatic conditions we are experiencing.

We will do this together with young farmers highlighted among the the candidates who applied to our Agroecology School.

Agroforestry is a decisive response able to regenerate soil fertility by promoting biological control, reducing external inputs and energy consumption, a system that suggests we give new space to complexity and diversification.

Until after the Second World War, in Italy and throughout the Mediterranean basin, the synergistic combination of wooded areas, vegetable gardens, arable land, pastures, meadows, orchards and olive groves was widespread within agro-silvo-pastoral systems, generating what we know as “our landscapes”.

ReAGES is an invitation to take action, to regain the decision-making power over our rural heritage while integrating a changed vision of agriculture and land management. This vision can generate high-quality biodiverse products, regenerate natural resources while supporting their intrinsic processes, and foster community cohesion.