Agricultural Policy

Agricultural Policy.

Extensive agriculture - a kind of agriculture where small inputs of labour, fertilisers and capital are used. Usually extensive farming is based on pastoral farming because of the areas having low agricultural productivity. However sometimes huge farming lands are used to grow cereals, fruits in order to produce enough yield. An example of extensive farming is the Mezzogiorno region in Southern Italy including Sicily and Sardinia. It consists of very rocky limestone soils (Terra Rossa) more inland, and a bit more fertile soils around the region of Naples due to the ashes from Vesuvius. There are only few rivers flowing in Mezzogiorno therefore irrigation is needed, however, as this is a poor region, very few farmers have it. The summers are very hot averaging about 25 °C and there's almost no rainfall, therefore the farming relies on citrus fruits, olives, grapes as these plants are well adapted to hot and dry conditions. Up in the mountains pastoral farming is usually taking place.