**6. Final considerations**

Traditional olive-growing agroecosystems constitute tiles within a mosaic made up of agrarian and semi-natural systems of different types, very fragmented and with high landscape diversity. Even at the farm level, biological diversity remains high both in the case that the olive tree is part of a poly-cultural system and in the case of olive groves conducted in conditions close to semi-natural. Olive trees are grown according to the knowledge and practices that include the use of different types of terracing, cultivation techniques, and genetic varieties that have been maintained for centuries by local communities. This extraordinary landscape made up of olive trees was shaped by the ancient interaction of farmers with the environment.

The countries of North Africa have their own landscape defined by the olive tree. A typical example is the desert area of Tunisia and Morocco where the olive tree naturally grows mainly in the valleys using the little humidity present. Tunisia is a land of olive trees, a place where the olive tree over the millennia has been infused with the culture, economy, cuisine, habits, rhythms, seasons of the nation. Some Tunisians even anoint babies with olive oil (**Figure 11**).

Multifunctionality has now become the strategic choice undertaken by many farms which, at various levels, carry out various activities to respond to the negative effects deriving from a system mainly oriented to the production of material goods of industrial origin. For agricultural enterprises, multifunctionality represents a "new" way of organizing production factors (internal resources) and interacting with external resources (the territory), aimed at pursuing economic, environmental, and social objectives in the medium and long term. Seen from a more general perspective, multifunctionality represents one of the key points in the development process of the agricultural sector and the rural world. The role of agriculture, in fact, for several

**Figure 11.** *Olive Tree in Tunisian landscape.*
