MORE AND MORE STUDENTS ARE CHOOSING THE FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE AND GETTING JOBS WITHIN ONE YEAR OF GRADUATION. THE CONFAGRICOLTURA/CENSIS STUDY TRACES THE IDENTIKIT OF THE MODERN FARMER: EDUCATED, INNOVATIVE AND WORLD MARKET-ORIENTED

Young Italians are looking more and more to agriculture for their future. The Faculty of Agriculture at Universities is experiencing a real boom, says Confagricoltura, Italian confederation of farmers, looking forward to the 2011-2012 academic year. This trend may be because 60% of graduates find work in agriculture within a year after graduation. The fact is that in this last academic year, aspiring agronomists at the University of Palermo, for example, registered a dramatic increase of 93%. The University of Bari in Puglia follows (+30%), then Naples (+27%) and Milan (+23%). Who is the modern farmer? Censis, the socio-economical statistics center, traced the identikit for the agricultural organization: less than 40 years old, educated, innovative and world market-oriented. He seeks to improve the quality of production through diversification and varietal testing of new cultivars or breeds. The “winning” young entrepreneur is curious and tends towards experimenting to enhance and implement the enormous contribution that scientific research offers to the agricultural world. As a matter of fact, the heads of the most profitable businesses are “under 40”. We are beginning to see a new future for agriculture in Italy. And, there is space for them: according to the Censis survey, 40-70% of Confagricoltura entrepreneurs’ children stay on to manage the business (3% of farms in Italy are managed by people under 35 years old). This percentage increases depending on how economically sound the company is. What do the future leaders expect from the agricultural institutions? First, strengthening policies and beating bureaucracy, but also encouraging applied research, stimulating productive investment and innovative production of bioenergy and biofuels.