The rural landscape, as a complex ecological and cultural system, represents a crucial paradigm for interpreting and promoting sustainable agriculture. This study investigates how land concentration, monoculture expansion, and biodiversity loss threaten the balance of agri-food ecosystems. Using a proven research methodology from the Interuniversity Research Group GECOAGRI-LANDITALY, the authors analyze some case studies through which they assess the process of land concentration in the European countryside, starting from the 90s of the last century - also favored by certain CAP Directives - and interpret the transformations induced on the historical rural landscapes that become fundamental geographical paradigms to explain the unsustainability of the concentration processes underway in the countryside. The analysis of the complex landscape elements and agricultural structures reveals the loss of traditional cultivation practices, already inherited from family farming and agro-food biodiversity.

Hungarian agricultural land use is one of the most concentrated in Europe. Over the past decade and a half, the ownership, farm structure and land use of agriculture have undergone profound changes. Nearly seven to eight hundred thousand small producers have given up farming and withdrawn from agriculture. By the time of EU accession, a significant concentration of land use and production had developed, which has not changed significantly since then. The proportion of land over 500 hectares reaches and, in some of its components, exceeds the share of large estates in the productive area before the Second World War. Land use concentration has a dual structure. Economic organizations cultivate the largest areas of land, but after the turn of the millennium, medium and larger individual farms also sought to purchase land and expand leases. In the first half of the 20th century, medium and small peasant farms provided a livelihood for more than a million peasant families. After the mid-1990s, the number of small farms began to decline rapidly. The sustaining capacity of agriculture declined significantly as a result of the concentration of land use and technological modernization. The restructuring of agriculture and the concentration of land use were linked to social, power and economic changes, the combined effect of which was to completely transform rural society and economy, The link between high-level rural poverty and land use structure can be traced back to the first half of the 1990s. Due to land compensation, land privatization, the way cooperatives were transformed, and the abolition of cooperatives' employment obligations, three hundred thousand people became unemployed in 1993 alone.

The paper presents the consequences of land concentration based on SAPS data and a survey of 5,000 people (2021): the change in the dominance of the monoculture of grain production, the decline of animal husbandry and horticulture, the transformation in the identity-forming role of the rural landscape, the displacement of locals from agriculture.

Monoculture production and large-scale land concentration have destroyed the direct connection of the rural population to the farmland, thereby greatly weakening the social foundations of sustainable agriculture and landscape management. The study, based on qualitative research, also presents those movements and individual forms of activity that consciously aimed to promote sustainable agricultural activities.

The evolving European rural landscape faces ascending pressures from urbanization, land concentration, and intensive agricultural practices. These dynamics have significant implications for ecosystem services (ES), particularly soil health and biodiversity, which are vital to environmental sustainability and human well-being. Portugal’s diverse ecosystems and legislative advancements provide a unique vision to explore these challenges and opportunities for sustainable land management. This study investigates the relationship between land-use strategies, soil health, and biodiversity conservation through an integrated approach that combines geospatial analysis, stakeholder participation, and quantitative assessment. It seeks to address two key questions: (i) How do different land management practices impact soil health? and (ii) What role does biodiversity play in enhancing ecosystem resilience under different land use practices?

Portugal’s environmental policies, such as alignment with the European Union’s Soil Monitoring Directive and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), underscore the urgency of sustainable practices. However, gaps in soil monitoring and biodiversity metrics hinder the development of effective strategies. This research bridges these gaps by employing advanced geospatial tools to map soil degradation risks, assess biodiversity trends, and evaluate the long-term sustainability of land-use changes.

Stakeholder engagement further enriches the analysis by incorporating local perspectives, ensuring that policy recommendations are grounded in practical realities. The findings reveal that sustainable land management practices can mitigate soil degradation and support biodiversity, offering a pathway to more resilient ecosystems.

The study’s outcomes align with the European Green Deal and the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, providing actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners. By addressing trade-offs and synergies between ecological and socio-economic objectives, the research highlights the importance of integrated approaches to land management. Finally, this study contributes to the broader understanding of rural transformations in Europe, emphasizing the need for evidence-based policies that prioritize soil restoration, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development.

Acknowledgments

This work has been developed under the Science4Policy 2024 (S4P-24), an annual Science for Policy Project call, an initiative promoted by Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Public Policies in partnership with the Foundation for Science and Technology, financed by Portugal´s Recovery and Resilience Plan. Project number 2024.00129.S4P24.

Agriculture in the Alps has long been considered a marginal activity afflicted by an irreversible decline, measured in terms of a decrease in the number of agricultural holdings and a reduction in agricultural surface area (Tasser et al., 2009; Ruffini, 2011).

More recently, some opposite trends are observed. New investments are exploiting marginal areas and new rentable crops are replacing less profitable productions, while global climate change pushes lowland species to move uphill and occupy mountain agricultural land. Vineyards are rapidly spreading in areas where a new climate, the market and rewarding policies allow it, as it is happening in the slopes of North-Eastern Italy for the Prosecco (Ferrario, D’Angelo, 2020). Similar phenomena of land concentration affect other sectors like fruit growing or grazing land.

At the same time, new signs of interest in agricultural activity have been recorded among old and new inhabitants of the Alps (Dematteis, 2012; Corrado et al., 2014), also as a response to the current socio-environmental crisis. In the context of the so-called «new farming», agriculture is considered an important factor of social innovation (Niedermayr et al., 2014; Maino et al., 2016; Gretter et al., 2019; Zollet and Majarjan, 2021) and an opportunity for environmental recovery, especially when inspired to the agroecology global movement (Wezel et al., 2009). New Alpine farmers introduce non-traditional, innovative or retro-innovative productions that can rejuvenate Alpine agriculture, preferably in a more sustainable direction.

Therefore in the Alpine landscape a new conflict has begun between a small, innovative and agroecological farming and intensive agriculture that more and more exploits mountains as a frontier to conquer. Starting from the results of a research on the new attractiveness of Alpine agriculture, this contribution works on this hypothesis through a mixed-methods approach capable of cross-referencing qualitative and quantitative data and bringing desk analysis and field investigations into dialogue. It deals both with case studies and general data analysis in the Italian Eastern Alps, as well as with rural policies that favour or impede the aforementioned trends.