70 Tending the land

Ditto that, we were also wondering the same thing as we're in a similar situation.

In some areas you can sell your olives to a cooperative - they will take care of the harvest for you then. I do not know what the arrangement is with fruit.

Mind you, you could always open your farm to young foreigners - they can camp on your land in exchange for a bit of work in your orchards...

Having been through one and a half seasons of renting our farmland out, I can tell you what happens with that. You will have to decide how much applies to your circumstances.

It is possible to rent your land to a farmer. The amount you will get varies enormously depending on where it is, what is on it etc. however, if your land is rented to the farmer that has the grant on the land, he should pay you on average 40% more than anyone else.

This should be a formal contract signed in the presence of your farmer's union representative (the farmer will also have their representative there). The farmers unions can prepare it for very little cost and it should be registered. This is to protect your right to your own land. Anyone actually farming in Italy is very well protected and you could end up in the situation where the farmer has rights to farm your land for 15 years (or in exceptional circumstances to own it) if you do not have a proper registered contract. This contract can last from 1 year to any number of years.

As for the arrangement where you lend your land to someone to farm and then share the crop, there is slightly more to it than that. Unless you have a very nice neighbour, who is feeling particularly generous to you, you will have to pay to have the land prepared, fertilised, cops sown, fertilised then harvested. The farmer may provide his labour free in return for half the crop or you could pay for it all and gett all the proceeds. Be warned, the prices we were quoted were not cheap although some friends of ours have a much more informal arrangement (and therefore pay less).

I also have some friends who have managed to find a neighbour to look after their olives. He gives them some oil and keeps the rest. They are both very happy with that. Those kind of arrangements are only found by asking your neighbours, in thye local bar etc.

I have found out lots of info about farming grants etc so feel free to PM me if anyone has any questions.

a quick question on this .... have heard recently that a lot of the subsidies that farmers relied on to look after other peoples olive trees will be either reduced or not available soon..... which means it will be harder to find some one to look after your olive groves for nothing... is this just a vicious rumour or .... penny i bet you know...

another thing... recently had a sad story here about one of our neighbours...helped everyone around...only fifty odd... so young in abruzzo hill top village terms.... fell out of the olive tree he was pruning for someone and eventually died..... not going to give details.... it happens a lot... broken bones in general.... either at harvest time or cutting back season... because these two events generally occur autumn and late winter spring....and olive trees are slippery...

so i would say....try and get your trees into shape so that you can pick most olives from a few steps up a short ladder....these big trees that have not been pruned for eons and you have to stretch out along thin branches are not suitable for olive harvesting.... if you dont know how to prune them yourself get someone in to take them back almost to their trunks...leaving a good spreading framework.... you might not get olives in quantity for a couple of years after this ...but eventually you will and they will be at a reachable height .....

...or if the birds give you a chance and you like nibbling dried olives... a favorite snack here... just let them fall....pick them up from the ground....leave them outside in a box for a couple of months to weather and then just start nibbling....they are good

Don't know much about olives & olive farming grants (only got one tree!) but there has been some talk in our area of the farming grants finishing after this round due to the new eastern european countries joining the EU. My personal opinion is this is unlikely - Britain continues to receive farming grants but it is a bouyant economy so why would they discontinue in Italy?

The way the farming grants work is, whoever was farming the land in 2000 2001 and 2002 has to declare the quota of crops and then receives the grant for the next 10 years based on that (even if they are not the person farming it!!!!!!). If they do not farm it, they should return the grant to the owner (pretty unlikely - ours isn't) but are not obliged to do so. Therefore the current grant allocations are in place until 2013. I would imagine it is the same for the whole of Italy but this is defintiely how it seems to work in Marche.

if a house has olive trees in the garden - do you need permission to remove some or all of them?

i am looking at houses in italy and one i like very much has about 2 acres of vines.can you get local farmers to look after these ,is there a lot more work involved compared to olive trees and what state would the vines be in if i did nothing for a couple of years.thankyou.

two acres is a lot.... if the quality of wine they produce is good then you will get someone to rent them.....

the work.... well they should by just about now have been pruned and tied in again.... all wiring and posts been checked and where needed replaced.... all wires retentioned... thru the year a bit of fertiliser ... and sprays with bordeaux mixture.... and the ground below cultivated and kept weed free... finally pick them... spetember october... you ll need help... if you press them yourself allow a couple of weeks ...... put it into demijons after xmas transfer it and leave the sediment....

if none of that sort of equipment is available with the property then they most probably have been renting it out....

if you leave them you are liable for noxious weeds seeding onto your neighbours ground .. so you have at least to cut back the weeds... and your vines will be aprox ten to twenty metres longer...so youll have a lot of work...and most of your neighbours will think your pretty useless anyway... so youll have got off to a bad start...

regarding olive trees in gardens... it depends on age and historical value.... and you should check before you do anything to any obviosly old tree... a compromise would be to move rather than to removec