Traditional olive growing between intensification and landscape: a multi-objective mathematical programming model with integers

Focusing on olive oil sector in central Italy, this paper proposes a decision support system for olive growers in order to: i) identify the optimal crop management in the hypothesis of maximizing gross farm income and maximizing a landscape integrity index; ii) simulate the effects of different policy and market scenarios. Results from multi-objective integer optimization models showed that the solution obtained by maximizing the gross income foresees the intensive crop management and the complete allocation of the farm area to newly planted olive groves. The traditional crop management is chosen when the landscape integrity index is maximized. However, only a 30% increase of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil price from ancient and traditionally managed olive groves could ensure their complete maintenance.