COLDIRETTI STUDY ON ITALIAN AGRICULTURE: 10% OF ITALIAN ENTERPRISES ON THE REBOUND, WITH FAMILY-RUN BUSINESSES DOING BEST THANKS TO LONGTERMACTIVITIES AND UNIQUE LOCALLY PRODUCED GOODS

10% of Italy’s agricultural enterprises appear to be on the rebound according to a Coldiretti study conducted by Professor Donato Romano on a sample of 326 companies selected from the main production areas.

The results of the study revealed that the economic crisis is discriminatory and hit different sectors with differing severity. Family-run businesses were better able to confront the crisis because of long-term activities and the diversity and uniqueness of their production (from agritourisms to local food products, etc.), while medium-large sized businesses suffered more. Companies that had certified products like DOP, IGP, and organic have also held strong.

According to the results of the study, the crisis hit hardest medium and large sized companies that produce undifferentiated commodities, though the crisis has hit to some degree or another all of Italy’s agricultural sector even if it has been later than most other sectors hit by the crisis. A particularity, however, is the fact that during a period of such serious crisis 10% of agricultural enterprises actually registered an improvement in earnings in this period.

In absolute terms, however, the survey demonstrated that the agricultural sector registered a net decrease in earnings due to the structural characteristics of the sector and the power that commercial “middle men” have, which determines an asymmetric change in prices from producer to end consumer.

The survey concluded that there are five modes of action that are necessary to be taken: make the sector more competitive and/or re-balancing the contractual power of agricultural producers; re-position the productive mix towards products that are more diversified in a qualitative and commercial sense and through channels that preserve their identity (certified production, transformation of products by the companies themselves, etc.); redefine the rules and contractual formulas for the placement of products in the initial phases of the production process; improvement of company productivity through investments in, above-all, structural upgrades; diversify the portfolio of activities at company level in order to guarantee more resilience against economic crises.