*The Olive Tree: A Symbol DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102827*

years now is no longer exclusively attributable to its function of producing basic necessities but expands through the recognition and performance of other environmental, social, landscape, historical, cultural, etc.

Multifunctionality actually places agriculture, in its renewed value as a producer not only of traditional goods but also of other goods, at the center of the interest of the economy and citizens. Among other things, multifunctionality is not an exclusive trait of small businesses nor, much less, of marginal agriculture, although multifunctionality can be a strategy aimed at improving the remuneration of the small family business. In the countryside and the primary sector, new economic models are being developed that, looking at the past, at peasant values, at traditional resources and methods, are innovating, revisiting schemes, creating new perspectives, including economic ones; it is agriculture in which future and tradition merge and are declined in retro-innovation—drawing on the experience of the past and enhancing previous knowledge, reinterpreting and using them in contemporary contexts and circumstances, to try to give answers to the needs of the present and above all to ensure that they do not turn into the emergencies of the future.
