How Olive Cultivation Shaped Corfu's Landscape
Trade, land use and generations of olive cultivation helped shape Corfu’s distinctive landscape.
A landscape connected to Venetian markets
Corfu’s many olive groves have an economic history as well as a natural setting. Venetian encouragement and demand for olive oil helped expand cultivation, turning some grain-growing land into plantations. Generations of cultivation then helped sustain that landscape through changes in landholding.
Olive growing developed over a long period, becoming predominant in eighteenth-century Corfu. Venetian authorities encouraged cultivation, while the prospect of income gave landowners and cultivators reasons to plant. This was an expansion of established olive growing, not the arrival of the island’s first olive trees.
The demand reached beyond the dining table. Corfiot oil supplied Venetian markets, including soap manufacture associated with textile production, and was also re-exported. The olive groves were connected to commerce beyond the island: a crop grown in Corfu could serve both food and industrial needs elsewhere.
When grain fields became olive groves
Expansion changed what the land produced. In his 1741 report, the Venetian official Giovanni Malipiero described land formerly used for grain being turned over to olive plantations. He linked that change, alongside population growth, to pressure on the island’s grain supply.
This was more than simply adding trees to the countryside. Some land once used to grow a staple food was being converted to an oil-producing crop. The economic value of olives therefore had to be balanced against the island’s need for grain.
Beyond Venetian Rule: Olive Growing in Episkepsi
The story continued at household level. In the mountain village of Episkepsi, family labour and landholding helped sustain olive cultivation through changes in ownership. Some older arrangements allowed cultivation and improvement rights to pass between generations, although practices varied from one holding to another.
Maria Couroucli’s fieldwork from 1976-77 describes closely planted trees and a reluctance to thin them, which affected both tree size and harvesting. This local example shows how everyday decisions about tending olive trees could shape the form of the grove itself, alongside broader influences such as trade and land ownership.
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