Italian agriculture: looking towards the new generations

Farmers under the age of 40 account for only 7.5% of the total. Although their number is growing, it is not enough to compensate for the progressive aging of Italian farmers whose average age is 63. Generational turnover is necessary to modernize the primary sector

Since the early 2000s, technological innovation has radically changed cultivating and farming methods. The process, which began with the first telematics applications and the development of vehicular communication systems, has become even more evident and incisive in the last five years with the boom of precision agriculture, the digitalization of production systems and, today, with the increasingly large-scale use of autonomous agricultural robots. It is a true “change of landscape”, one that heavily raises the issue of generational turnover in the primary sector. If it is true, on the one hand, that training plays an essential role in "educating" operators in the proper use of new technologies, it is equally true, on the other, that it is mainly young farmers who promote the use of highly innovative machinery and devices on a daily basis. The issue, which in a transition phase such as the current one affects agricultural economies across the planet, takes on particular urgency in a country like Italy which, with an average age of 48.4 years, has the oldest population in the European Union (44.5 years). The phenomenon of demographic aging inevitably affects the composition of the primary workforce. Today, farmers under the age of 40 make up just 7.5% of the total: that is, 97,500 out of 1.3 million. The number is growing, attesting to the renewed interest of working in the fields, however, it is still not enough to rejuvenate a sector that continues to be driven by those over 60 (the average age of farmers is 63). The topic, so relevant for the future of Italian agriculture, was at the center of the Bologna event that took stock of the situation, engaging all the operators and interested categories. The numbers - it was underlined during a conference entitled "Generational turnover in agriculture: the future in the hands of young people" held on the second day of EIMA - show the great distance between Italy and the rest of Europe. While in Italy one in five businesses is run by a young person under 40, in Europe the average is just under one in three, and this confirms the need to encourage a generational turnover also with a view to modernizing the sector. “We can have the most innovative agricultural machinery in the world, but there must be someone to drive it: this someone is a young person,” said Paola Adami, director of Itasf, the Network of Agricultural Institutes Without Borders. Of the total of over 1.3 million active agricultural businesses in Italy, only 100,000 are run by young people, inclined to innovate and attentive to the issue of sustainability. The conference – one of many attended by the president of the Young Agricultural Entrepreneurs association, Enrico Calentini – also allowed us to take stock of the application of Law 36 of 2024 for youth entrepreneurship in agriculture, thanks to the presence, by connection from Rome, of Marco Carloni, president of the Agriculture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. According to Carloni, the sector today has two priorities: the need to continue to promote technological innovation in the primary sector and to facilitate generational turnover. However, a critical point was raised by the Italian Confederation of Farmers (CIA), through its president Cristiano Fini: the implementing decrees of law 36, which provides, among other things, direct contributions and tax incentives for training, have not yet been passed. These decrees - it was explained - are needed to bring resources equal to EUR 200 million, spread out over several years, into operation. But above all they are needed to promote the daily use of more advanced, safe, sustainable and higher-performance technologies, precisely through the increased spread of highly specialized know-how.