Terracing in Madeira

Madeira was first settled in the fifteenth century by the Portuguese. They found a mountainous island of dense forest with almost-permanent cloud, which meant a plentiful rainfall. The climate is temperate and the soil fertile.The problem was to create enough suitable agricultural land for all the crops which the soil and climate would support. To achieve this, the settlers built their villages on the slopes and used slaves to construct vast areas on terracing on the mountain sides to grow their crops of sugar cane, vines, bananas and wheat. This was a massive undertaking.

Irrigation was provided by a network of "levadas", water channels which curve around the sides of the mountains following the contour lines and make use of the plentiful rainfall. Many of these still function.

Many of the mountainsides are covered with these terraces, but today many of them are falling into disrepair as people prefer to work in the towns and in the tourist industry. Other crops and many flowers are now grown on the island but the productivity of the mountain slopes is much reduced.