Social‐ecological sustainability of olive farming in the Mediterranean: A review of current practices and an agroecological perspective

Abstract Olive farming represents a prime example of a biodiversity‐rich land‐use system in the Mediterranean, deeply rooted in a long history and cultural traditions, yet it faces mounting challenges from climate change, biodiversity loss, and declining economic viability that put its sustainability at risk. As such, olive farming also serves as a model case of broader trends in agriculture, where extensive land‐use systems with long histories are increasingly under pressure to intensify production and optimize costs. Three farming systems currently dominate olive production: traditional, conventional, and sustainably intensified systems. Yet, a systematic comparison of their sustainability performance is still lacking. To address this gap, this study pursues two aims: (1) to systematically compare the sustainability dimensions of current olive farming, (2) to outline pathways for future agroecological systems. Our results reveal clear trade‐offs between sustainability dimensions in current farming systems. Traditional systems preserve cultural heritage but are often economically not viable and, in many regions, insufficiently resilient to climatic stress. Conventional systems achieve higher yields but are associated with environmental degradation and reduced long‐term resilience due to intensive input use and landscape simplification. Sustainably intensified systems strive to integrate productivity with environmental care but rely heavily on external technologies and inadequately address social equity and input dependency. Given the limitations of current approaches, agroecology emerges as a promising pathway for systemic transformation of olive farming. Nevertheless, significant knowledge gaps remain, particularly regarding the effects of specific agroecological practices on social and governance indicators and the need for the operationalization of holistic frameworks that capture interactions among practices and sustainability dimensions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.