Agriculture, 7 out of 10 companies invest in innovation

In the last 24 months, 69.5% of Italian agricultural companies have invested in innovation, focusing mainly on new technologies and cutting-edge agricultural techniques. And innovation proves to be the factor that, more than any other, allows for managing the ecological transition, mitigating risks, and improving the environmental and social impact, as evidenced by the fact that the most innovative companies are almost all (78.9%) of those with the highest level of sustainability.

This is what emerges from the fourth edition of AGRIcoltura100, the Reale Mutua and Confagricoltura project to promote the contribution of agriculture to the sustainable growth of the country. Presented at the Confagricoltura headquarters, the competitionwas attended by 3,132 companies, compared to 1,850 in 2020.

Companies' answers show how farmers' contribution to improving the environmental impact of their activities is growing. According to the report, in fact, 55.3% of farms have a high level of sustainability, an increase on both 2023 and 2020, when the share was 48.8%; at the same time, the number of farms at a basic level is decreasing, from 20% four years ago to 12.1% today.

The first value that companies attribute to the culture of sustainability is that of increasing product quality, also as a guarantee of consumer health, considered fundamental or very important by 85.7%. In second place among the values of sustainability is commitment to the environment (76.3%), followed by relations with the supply chain (70.1%), valorisation of the local community (67.4%), investment in innovation (67.1%) and awareness of the company's social role towards workers and the community (65.8%), the latter value increasing by more than 5 percentage points compared to 2022.