In Crete olives are cultivated since antiquity, as archaeological evidence form the Minoan era shows. Olive production today occupies around 70% of total agricultural cultivated land. The landscape in most of the olive cultivated areas varies considerably. Olives are cultivated in coastal areas and often in sloppy orchards at the foothills of the mountains. Olive orchards are combined with vineyards, arable and grazing land. The soils are rocky and often shallow and eroded.

Prototyping of olive production started at Messara valley in 1992. In the initial phase a diagnosis of the shortcomings of current production system was carried out. Based on this diagnosis a prototype ecological olive production was designed. At first objectives were set and hierarchies ordered regarding the sustainable systems to be designed. Based on this hierarchy of objectives parameters (indicators of the performance and sustainability of the designed systems) were selected. Farming methods were designed in co-operation with the pilot growers for achieving the desired results of the parameters. A theoretical prototype linking parameters to the methods was designed. The theoretical prototype was tested in pilot olive orchards, improved and disseminated among the growers of the region. Besides the pilot group of growers an agri-environmental group (Cretan Agri-environmental Group) was established to introduce and develop an ecological knowledge system that will support ecological olive production and will support learning process. Principles of organic olive production are briefly described in the following paragraph.