Italian agriculture lacks of innovation

Only a small minority of farms invest in innovation. This emerges from the preliminary data of the 7th General Census of Agriculture, released by Istat in these days. According to the data, in the three-year period 2018-2020 just 11% of Italian agricultural companies innovated their production processes, with investments aimed at the renewal of agricultural machinery (55.6% of cases), of sowing and plant systems (23.2%), of soil processing technologies (17.4%) and irrigation (16.5%). The first results of the census show that the propensity to invest is more widespread among companies with a larger Utilized Agricultural Area that carry out both agricultural and livestock activities (18.8%). This propensity, in fact, is higher than that of businesses specialized only in  agricultural activities (9%) and that of purely livestock businesses (14.4%). From a territorial point of view, companies that make investments for innovation are much more present in the northern regions of Italy (more than 20%), than in the Center (approx. 10%) and in the South (5%).