Mountain Pasture in Friuli (Italy): Past and Present

In mountainous regions, where agricultural activities are constrained by the climatic effects of altitude, edaphic factors, a scarcity of soil, and steep slopes, pastoralism was the most effective and dominant agricultural activity. Large expanses of grassland, which ring the valleys above the tree line, could be made accessible for productive farming activities using the ability of domestic livestock to convert the natural plant cover into nutritious produce. In the Alps—as described also in the Chapter 6 of this volume—a combination of cultivation and herding emerged, which has become known as alpine animal husbandry or the alpine agropastoral system