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NATURE >Agriculture | |||||||||||||
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Agriculture |
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The land reclamation activities carried out in the past, in particular between the end of the 19th century and the '70s, turned thousands of hectares of marshy areas and wetlands into cultivable land. During the last two centuries, great expanses of wet pasture lands and fishing valleys have been replaced by agricultural areas, drained thanks to the action of dewatering pumps. Only a few thousand hectares in the area of Ravenna have been reclaimed by alluvium, by filling them with the flood waters of the Apennine rivers, rich in deposits, and favouring the natural process of silting up of the wetlands. Agriculture is nowadays the main production activity carried out in the areas surrounding the wetlands, strongly influencing their conservation state and the quality (eutrophication caused by fertilizers and refluent zootechnical substances; pollution deriving by the use of pesticides) and quantity (use for irrigation aims) of water. Agriculture directly influences the conservation of riparian and marshy habitats only when it is practised along fluvial banks or in the marginal areas of the wetlands. The Park agricultural areas are mainly characterised by the so-called "larga", consisting of large cultivable allotments on recently reclaimed low lands; the substratum can be dominated either by sand or clay. The most important crops include wheat, corn, sorghum, beets, lucerne, sunflower and soya, while in the hinterland - where the soil is richer in peat - rice growing is widespread too. There are also: areas with specialised horticultural crops, in particular on sandy soils, with greenhouses and irrigation networks; poplar groves, usually along the fluvial banks; small allotments covered with vineyards and orchards spread throughout the agricultural area called “larga” and concentrated in lines going from the north to the south, parallel to the coastline and corresponding to the ancient dune strips. Other arboreal crops can be found near the main watercourses, where land is higher and the soil is mainly clayey, meaning that the land reclamation activity is much more ancient. Many low lands characterised by the winter rising of the water table, and situated next to the wetlands, are still cultivated nowadays even if they are not productive; however, some scarcely productive agricultural areas have recently been flooded again or reforested thanks to the support given by the European policies to the reduction of cultivated lands. In the last few years, following some European policies and thanks to the Park commitment, several activities of agricultural reconversion towards more sustainable forms of production and towards biological productions have been carried out. Agricultural-environmental agreements as well as informative and promotional activities have been thus activated and have led to the creation of a didactic circuit. Agricultural-environmental agreements
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