Land consolidation in Calonico and Campiroi
In Ticino, until 1800, private plots of land were governed by the so-called "real inheritance law", whereby the assets were divided equally among those entitled to inheritance. This division took place with each inheritance, so that the plots of land became smaller and smaller. In Ticino, fragmentation was very high, e.g. in the early 1900s the 30,000 hectares of land belonging to private individuals (meadows, fields, vineyards, forests) were divided into 717,000 plots, or an average of 24 plots per hectare (415 m2 / plot). In the Leventina and Blenio there were as many as 34 plots per hectare (300 m2 / plot). This excessive parcelling meant that a rational use of agricultural activities was no longer possible and productivity fell considerably (not to mention the enormous difficulties of measuring plots and registering them in the land register). Here is the example of the " Monti di Co' ", situated not far from Campiroi, where the territory was divided into 689 parcels (the areas without parceling represent the land owned by the patrizi).
In order to remedy this situation, the Confederation and the cantons created the legal bases needed to make parcel reparcelling possible (also known as "land consolidation"), i.e. the reorganisation of agricultural parcels in a municipality with the aim of reducing their number in order to increase their profitability.
In 1893 the Confederation passed a law to promote agriculture and improve land use, followed in 1912 by an act on inheritance law to standardise practices in all cantons. In Ticino, the first law on regrouping was passed in 1912, followed by amendments in 1920, 1949, 1970 and later. At the same time, the financial framework was defined to support the activities and the distribution of costs between the confederation, the canton and private individuals.
The municipality of Calonico undertook land consolidation activities on the Monti di Co' in 1924-1928, followed in 1948-1949 by another land consolidation for the rest of the Calonico district. The result for Calonico can be seen below. The parcels in the Monti di Co' were reduced from 689 to 28! In the whole of the Calonico district, the number of plots was reduced from about 6000 to about 300. In addition, roads were built for several kilometres to allow access to the plots of land (compare the first map with the following one).
Cadastral surveying in Calonico following the consolidation was carried out between 1927 and 1961 in several stages using two different methods: one using conventional terrestrial surveying and a second one using the aerial photogrammetric method, a Swiss first in a mountain area! This technique is carried out by mounting photographic equipment on planes that fly above the territory to be observed and the data are then interpolated to obtain the distance between the various points on the territory.
Federal and cantonal authorities discussing in Calonico around 1950
Campiroi, although mostly used by farmers from the municipality of Calonico, was part of the municipality of Rossura. Consolidation in Rossura came very late, in the 1980s. Initially, the federal administration questioned the usefulness of the regrouping work, as very few farmers were interested in working the land. The television programme "Argomenti" of 1 October 1980, after the final approval of the Grand Council, produced a report with the title "Rossura, 5 millions for ten farmers", referring to the costs of 4.3 million francs for the road and 700 thousand francs for the consolidation work.
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https://lanostrastoria.ch/entries/dRQXlQDDn8J
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Below is the situation before and after the land consolidation for the Campiroi area. The black lines in bold represent the situation after it.
From: 1) Dokumente des Ufficio del Catasto e dei riordini fondiari, Dipartimento delle finanze e dell’economia, Ticino, 2) «I raggruppamenti Terreni in Ticino», Forrer M., 1986 3) Dizionario Storico della Svizzera (DSS), 4) “Die Besonderheiten der Grundbuchvermessung und Güterzusammenlegung im Kanton Tessin”, Baltensberger J., 1927 5) “La photogrammétrie aérienne dans la mensuration cadastrale officielle de Calonico», Pastorelli A. 1952.