Innovations in agriculture, mechanization hits the top

The digitization of agricultural practices is an ongoing process in the most technologically advanced countries, but Italy I “running slow”. In fact, the vast majority of Italina farms (84%), i.e. about 950,000 out of a total of over 1.13 million, do not have completed the computerization of their production processes. This is what emerges from the Nomisma report entitled "The new challenges for Italian agriculture", presented on the occasion of the 9th edition of the CIA Economic Conference which was held in Rome on 8 and 9 February.
If computerized farms represent a minority of the total, those investing in innovation are even less. In the three-year period 2018-2020 - according to the Nomisma report - only 11% of companies in the sector (124,000 units) invested in technology. Particularly significant is the fact that more than half of them, ie more than 70,000 companies, have strengthened their production system by focusing on mechanization making investments in agricultural machines the most popular item for the agricultural sector.
The photograph shot by the analysis of the prestigious research institute, although fully responsive to the reality of a few years ago, does not fully describe the current situation. In fact, the Nomisma analysis does not consider the two-year period 2021-2022 which for the agricultural machinery sector was characterized by a strong growth in investments which benefited from a substantial package of state subsidies. The progress made in this field must not make us forget that, as the Nomisma report points out, the process of modernizing Italian agriculture is still long and complicated and that it requires in the first instance the overcoming of that traditional gap which even today penalizes Italian primary sector.