Farming in Umbria

Hi there!

Since we are in the countryside, surrounded by fields in crops, I do pay some attention to what the farmers are doing. It’s interesting to me that nearly all the crops are in now (first week of August) except for the corn (“maize” in UK English), sorghum (“milo” in US English), sunflowers, and tobacco. Not only that, the majority of the fields that have been harvested are now also ploughed under, so we are surrounded by freshly ploughed fields.

And talking about ploughing, the Umbrians go really deep when they plough – between 50cm and 75cm deep (about 1½-2½ feet). To do this, they mostly use tracked tractors (“Caterpillar” is a brand name but is also a pretty widely recognised generic term world-wide, I think that Lamborghini is the second most popular brand around here) instead of the more conventional 4-wheeled type, even with 4-wheel drive. Also, they seem to ignore the practice I’m familiar with in ploughing with the land elevation contours to minimise soil erosion. The fields tend to be ploughed in straight lines and up and down the hills! Have I missed something or are they missing something?






Ciao for now…

Craig