Renewables, water and infrastructure: how the value of agricultural land is changing
Developments in the land market highlight the growing importance of new factors not strictly linked to production: areas that were once marginal have become central thanks to the development of tourism and the enhancement of the landscape
For a long time, agricultural land was regarded as the easiest asset to assess in the property market: an asset whose value depended almost exclusively on its agronomic quality and productive capacity. Today, this approach is no longer sufficient.
The Italian land market is undergoing a profound transformation, in which value does not stem from a single variable, but from the interplay of increasingly diverse factors: access to water, infrastructure, agro-industrial supply chains, environmental constraints, energy demand and regional attractiveness. To speak of the ‘land market’ in the singular is now an oversimplification, as there are in fact many local markets – often unconnected to one another – in which even a distance of just a few kilometres can result in significant differences in value.
Italian history provides clear examples of how these hierarchies can change over time: areas that were once peripheral to the agricultural economy have become central thanks to the development of tourism or landscape enhancement. Today, the same phenomenon is recurring in more technical forms: a plot of land may gain value due to its proximity to an electricity grid, a processing plant or a manufacturing hub, or because of its suitability for hosting renewable energy projects.
The case of Sardinia is particularly telling. For a long time, in a predominantly agro-pastoral society, value was associated with the land’s capacity to support pastures, crops, rural settlements and sustained production. Land in the interior, more directly linked to the local economy, could prove more valuable than rocky coastal stretches, which were poorly served and difficult to utilise according to traditional productive standards. It is no coincidence that, in the tradition of inheritance, inland land was allocated to men, whilst coastal land – often marshy and of limited use – was allocated to women: a choice that reflected a clear hierarchy of value.
The emergence of the Costa Smeralda, formalised with the establishment of the Consortium in 1962, radically changed the way that area was perceived. An area described at the time as marginal, largely deserted and lacking in infrastructure, has been gradually transformed into a high-end international tourist destination. The topography of the land has not changed; what has changed is the economic framework through which that land is interpreted. What was once considered a marginal feature has, over time, proved to be a competitive advantage.
