There is a ranking in which we are not the rear in Europe and it also concerns a very important aspect from an economic, environmental and social point of view: in Italy the availability of arable land for young people has increased in the last five years by 12% and there are now over 56 under 35s at the helm of agricultural enterprises, an absolute record at the Community level.
This "back to earth", which has been talked about for years as a primarily cultural phenomenon, was therefore certified by Coldiretti, which it disclosed an analysis based on Unioncamere data on the occasion of the opening of the third tender of the Banca delle Terre (Bat), which makes 10 hectares available in 386 lots.
The value of the phenomenon is very broad and is not limited to the romantic aspect, nor only to the creation of professional opportunities outside the standard channels (degree - city life - office): meanwhile, compared to the past, a novelty is that the under 35 they almost all came from other sectors or from different experiences, and therefore could not count on the family land assets. It is therefore not a matter of nepotism or age-old family traditions, but of choices.
And the entry of new recruits, more accustomed to digital and more sensitive to the environment, in a crucial sector such as agriculture, can only bring benefits also in terms of innovation and development: young farms, according to what has been by Coldiretti, they have in fact 75% higher turnover than the average and 50% more employed per company.
Furthermore, thanks to young people, Italian agriculture has become the greenest in Europe with 299 Dop/Igp/Stg specialties recognized at community level and 415 Doc/Docg wines, the leadership in the organic sector with 72 operators in the sector, 40 farms involved in keeping seeds or plants at risk of extinction and the primacy - again according to Coldiretti - of world food security.
In Italy the value per hectare of agricultural land is on average around 20.000 euros, albeit with a strong territorial differentiation between the Northeast, where values are recorded above 43.000 euros/hectare, and the South, where the average drops between 8-13.000 euros/hectare.
