The word “steppe” is derived from the Russian “степь (stepj)” which means “absence of trees” and is used to name the wide plains dominated by herbaceous vegetation, especially grasses, extending from Moldavia across Ukraine up to the Siberia with an important enclave in Hungary.

There are no true steppes in the Mediterranean. However, the practice of extensive agriculture, particularly of dryland cereal farming (as wheat, oat or barley), often in a rotation regime called fallow land (in which the land “rests” and is used as natural pasture), has “created” a similar landscape.

Due to the similarities in vegetation cover (predominantly with herbaceous plants or shrubs, generally small sized) and relief characteristics (wide plains), the term “cereal steppe” (or pseudo-steppe) is thus used to describe these man-made areas occurring particularly in Southern Europe and Northern Africa (that is, in the Mediterranean basin).

Known as Mediterranean cereal steppe or Mediterranean pseudo-steppe, this is one of the most threatened rural landscapes of the Mediterranean region both by ecological (productive capability of the soil) and economic (replacement by high yield crops) factors.