Agricultural Settlement and Land Use in Mountains - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 577

FIGURE 11.20 Farmhouse and fields above Grindelwald, Berner Oberland, Switzerland. (Photo by S.
F. Cunha.)
Although traces of this idealized mixed farming scheme still exist throughout the
Alps, it is most prevalent in the north. It survives as an economic entity only with sub-
stantial aid (e.g., tax incentives, price supports, and infrastructure projects) from gov-
ernments and the European Union, partly because the picturesque rural agricultural
landscape is a tourist gold mine, but also to maintain biodiversity as well as rural pop-
ulations (Price et al. 2011a). Such backing is rare or nonexistent in the mountains of
developing countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, where true subsistence mixed
farming remains important. Throughout Europe, the term “Alpine” implies high-altitude
landscapes with trees, villages, and pastures. This differs from standard biogeograph-
ical usage, where it denotes terrain above the treeline (see Chapter 7). The breakdown
of traditional mixed agriculture in alpine Europe started in the mid-1800s, accelerat-
ing first after World War II and then again after the 1960s, when independent farmers
could no longer match the highly mechanized productivity gains of lowland competit-
ors who were also located closer to urban markets. A population exodus followed, led
by young people seeking a more lucrative city life. With fewer hands to drive livestock,
many abandoned farms are undergoing secondary plant succession, which promotes
the return of wild ungulates (mostly deer). Browsing by these species is preventing
the reestablishment of late-stage succession forests (Motta 1999, Soliva 2007). Alpine
mixed farming today usually requires local people to combine government subsidies set
by European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with industrial or service-sec-
tor jobs, often coupled to the exploding demand for mountain recreation (Tosi 2000;
Garcia-Martinez et al. 2010). Most alpine farmers today are either older (>50 years) or
combine part-time farming with another part- or full-time nonfarm occupation, of which