Farms, the average size rises to 11 hectares

Fewer and fewer but always bigger. This is the photograph of Italian farms taken by the seventh Census of Agriculture, the preliminary data of which were released by Istat (the Italian Institute for statistics) on 28 June last. In ten years – states a press release from the Institute - the number of companies active in the primary sector has dropped significantly, from 1,620,000 to 1,133,000, with a net loss of 487,000 units. The reduction in the number of farms is matched by an expansion of the production area, which has increased on average from 7.9 to 11.1 hectares. In a scenario like the Italian one, characterized for a long time by the pulverization of agricultural production units, the phenomenon highlighted by the Istat census seems to indicate a progressive rationalization of the sector. Decreasing figures, between 2010 and 2020, also for the total agricultural area and the utilized agricultural area. The first, which includes the complex of land for agricultural use (for production and non-productive purposes), decreased by 3.6%, reaching 16.5 million hectares. The second, which instead considers only the land entering the production cycle, decreased by 2.5% to 12.5 million hectares.