Young people, innovation and organic farming: spending EU funds measure by measure
With a budget of more than 2.9 billion between European funds and state and regional co-financing, Sicily's 2014-2022 Rural Development Programme is, at the national level, the largest in terms of financial endowment and implementation articulation, being divided into 18 measures, 49 sub-measures, 23 operations. In view of this, the regional administration has focused on a few main strategic levers: organic farming, young people, innovation, and production quality excellence. For this reason, the Sicilian Region has decided to allocate the bulk of its resources to measures that intercept these development guidelines. To this was added, recently, the inclusion of an important reprogramming intervention to activate support for companies in difficulty with respect to the economic crisis caused by the severe drought that characterised above all the second half of 2023 and all of 2024. This is both in terms of prevention (through sub-measure 5.1) and compensation through the new measure 23, currently being implemented.
A high technical and financial commitment has therefore been placed first and foremost on organic farming, thus aiming, with around 300 thousand hectares of crops already managed under the organic system, to consolidate and exceed the important target of 25% of the UAA (Utilised Agricultural Area) that the European Union has set itself, and thus to provide determined funding for policies to support cleaner agronomic methods, and thus for production of higher overall quality. Alongside this, significant support has also been allocated to integrated methods involving low fertiliser and irrigation water use. This is also possible thanks to the availability of widespread specific professionalism and specialised technical services, such as Sias (Sicilian agro-meteorological information service) of the Regional Agriculture Department, which support farmers in making business choices that are more respectful of the environment and human health, through the adoption of the most rational and modern cultivation techniques.
In addition to this first important strategic element, the other strength that has been strategically targeted is the world of young people in agriculture, with about 2,000 new entrepreneurs aged 18 to 40 years old set up in farms, thanks to the high volume of resources allocated to the renewal of young agricultural entrepreneurship associated with the improvement of farm structures, through the implementation of the 'youth package', linked to sub-measure 4.1 and operation 6.4.a.
However, Sicily has also identified another priority for action in the weakest rural areas, often the most inland and mountainous ones, by allocating significant resources to continue supporting disadvantaged areas and improving road infrastructure. This is mainly related to the livestock sector, to which, more than before, due and proper attention has been paid. Proof of this was, moreover, the intervention in favour of farm management techniques concerning the welfare of livestock farms, financed for the first time in 2022 under measure 14, the operational implementation of which has been well received in the area. Interventions in support of livestock farms, applied in Sicily mainly through selective funding for this sector, which is widespread in disadvantaged areas, and payments that incentivise the adoption of techniques that improve animal welfare, thus make it possible to reward the high quality of regional livestock production. This encourages them to further increase their value and added value, because they are obtained in healthy rural areas, using non-intensive methods and respecting high ethical and health standards for the animals reared.
Last but not least, and certainly of great strategic value, was also the support for all interventions that now refer to the so-called Akis approach (Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System) concerning research, innovation, training, and business consulting. On these types of intervention, especially through sub-measures 16.1 and 16.2 of the Programme, projects for the transfer of innovations in the agricultural and rural world have been supported, with the aim of further strengthening the supply chains that guarantee technical-economic growth based more and more on production excellence, which for Sicily constitutes, today more than ever, the real primary lever of international competitiveness.
