Tractors and agricultural machinery, exports down 25%

The 2024 export of made-in-Italy agricultural machinery, in which the wine-growing sector accounts for about half, is close to 1.2 billion euros. According to Istat data processed by the Osservatorio Uiv on the occasion of the 2025 edition of Enovitis in Campo (from 16 to 19 June in Rosciano, Pescara, an event that allows wine-growers to see tractors at work in the vineyard), last year the Italian sector, a world leader, recorded a 25% setback on the value of foreign sales in the previous 12 months. Last year's negative performance does not seem to be improving in the first two months of 2025, at 167.6 million euro, down 9% on the same period in 2024.

In particular, in 2024 the top four countries for exports recorded double-digit declines, with France at -34%, Germany at -45%, Spain at -25% and the United States at -14%. A generalised contraction, with the EU market (accounting for 65% of sales) down 30% and the non-EU market -15%. The start of 2025 confirmed the stagnation of demand in France (-29%), Germany (-32%) and the USA (-60%), while shipments to Spain (+6%), Poland (+79%) and Turkey (+32%) showed a recovery.

On the merchandise front, the performance is mainly affected by the motor component, tractors, which together account for more than half of the sector's exports, in the red zone at -32% last December and -11% at the close of the first two months of 2025. However - as the main players in the sector say - there are some timid signs of recovery from March onwards.

"The wine-growing machinery and technology sector is suffering a natural downturn this year after the rush of orders in 2021-23," explains Paolo Castelletti, secretary general of the Italian Wine Union (UIV), which organises the dynamic annual exhibition, "a physiological drop after the +13% of 2023, but also weighed down by the slowdown in investments caused by the difficult situation in the wine sector, not only in Italy.

According to the survey on the wine supply chain in Italy carried out by the UIV-Vinitaly Observatory in 2023, the 'Vineyard' segment (agropharmaceuticals, fertilisers, vineyard planting and mechanisation) in Italy generates about EUR 2 billion in turnover per year and employs more than 10,250 people in about 400 companies.