Traditional agroforestry systems in Greece: past and future

Key words: agroforestry systems represent traditional life style, but also cultural, symbolic and religious values.

Former Associate Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Kifisias 97, Thessaloniki, 54248 ispiki67@yahoo.gr

Origin Of Traditional Agroforestry Systems

Agroforestry is an ancient land use form, which is practiced by farmers in different areas of Greece. The coexistence of forest and/or fruit trees with herbaceous plants (cereals, vegetables, aromatic, medicinal plants, plants for dyes, fibers or fodder) or with woody plants (grapevines), as well as grazing animals, had as its main purpose the most efficient utilization of the limited land and the fulfillment of the subsistence needs of rural families (Ispikoudis 2005, Sidiropoulou 2011). Agroforestry is a relatively new term, which adds scientific knowledge to the empirical one (Shultz et al. 1987).Various types of intercropping have been known since ancient times, such as the fact that wheat, barley and some legumes could be planted at different moments during the cultivation period and often in combination with grapevines and olive trees (Papanastasis et al. 2004). Most of the farmers kept some animals (usually pigs) and/or beehives. Livestock husbandry was of great importance and used land which was not always suitable for agriculture. Agrosilvopastoral systems increased during the Byzantine period, when climatic, environmental, historical and social conditions such as hard and inflexible land taxation, had as a consequence the abandonment of intensive land exploitation through agriculture, the return to nomadic life, the depopulation of the lowlands and the clearing of forests in the highlands, where the lives of people were organized in agrosilvopastoral systems (Kontos 1929, Grispos 1973). Money or products were collected as tax per “stremma” (1,000 square meters), but cultivations with trees were not subject to cadastral censuses, meaning there was no tax interest as was the case in the open cultivated lands (i.e. without trees).The latter was the main tax resource for the Byzantines, as well as for the Ottomans who followed.

Agroforestry systems were favoured during the Ottoman period, due to the landownership and taxation systems in combination with the fact that Christians were overtaxed. In the Ottoman Empire, buildings and cultivated trees were classed as distinct property, independent of the land. There was also the Vakoufio or “Vakif” ordinance, which according to the Islamic law, consists of an asset dedicated to the fulfillment of an indefinitecharitable cause; in that sense, Vakoufio was considered a Divine Thing, whose benefits belonged to the people. Vakoufia (the plural of Vakoufio), as sacred religious property were deducted from taxation (Grispos 1973). Properties of churches and monasteries were recognized by the Ottoman authorities as Vakifs, as devout charitable trusts equivalent to the Islamic trusts (Kampouridis 2018).

Recognition of Christian Vakoufia from the Ottoman jurists resulted in Orthodox Christians legalizing their donations to the monasteries, in order to avoid some taxes. In a Vakoufio, it was possible that trees belonged to farmers, who used to take advantage of them in combination with cultivation or grazing in organized agrosilvopastoral systems on their own land, which would belong to a monastery or church or some monk or priest, who would allow farmers to cultivate on that piece of land. (Kontos 1929). In this way, taxation was less (only tithe, tax on agricultural production, was imposed, but no land tax) (Grispos 1973).