A year to forget for agriculture. 2013 is starting to close with a negative balance in terms of income and employment for agricultural enterprises. According to data from the Confagricoltura Study Centre, in the first nine months of the year the agricultural added value fell by 1,4%, certainly better than industry which recorded a -3,7% and than the total national economy - 2,2%. But a decline that is added to several years of decline in productivity. There was also a marked decline in agricultural workers who decreased by 4,3% in the first nine months of the year. The drop was 3,3% for employees only. This is a worse performance than the total of the national economy.
“2013 – notes the Confagricoltura Study Center – was, for agriculture, a year to forget: for Italian agricultural enterprises the lasting effects of the crisis and the succession of natural disasters caused them to lose income and employment. However, there are elements of positivity in agri-food exports”. Based on the good performance on foreign markets, the Centro Studi believes that 2014 could be the year of recovery even if, he specifies, "We will all have to work to achieve this result".
