Agriculture, in Italy the expenditure for the development of new agropharmaceutical products is 32 million euros

Agriculture 4.0 growing, areas cultivated according to organic methods in Italia continuously increasing and over 30 million per year invested in R&D activities by associated companies: these are the main results that emerge from the latest edition of theAgrofarma Observatorythe report that tells the state of the art of Italian agriculture and the agricultural sector.

“The image emerges of a growing sector, driven by structured companies with a high propensity for innovation, engaged in a market which in turn has recorded a constant increase in recent years,” he explains Enrica Gentile, CEO and founder of Areté, scientific responsible partner of the project. “The strong connection with the highly innovative sectors of agritech and biotechnology, of lower impact agricultural inputs, means that these companies play a leading role in accompanying agriculture and its supply chains in the path of the ecological transition ”.

In 2023, 9% of the Italian utilized agricultural area (UAA) was cultivated using 4.0 tools, continuing to be one of the sectors with the highest growth (+ 71%), with a market worth 2.5 billion euros in 2023. As regards research and development activities, the report highlights that the expenditure allocated to the development of new agropharmaceutical products reaches 32 million euros, equal to an average of 2.9% of the total turnover per company, against an average, according to the Istat data, of 1.5% of the industrial sector. To these must be added the investments made at global and European level for the identification and registration of new active substances.

Forehead biological agriculturethe Observatory highlights how the surfaces allocated to this type of production in Italy continue to grow: the incidence of organic agriculture on the total Italian UAA, equal to 20% in 2022 with 2.3 million total hectares, is by far higher than the European average of 9% in the same year.

These constant growth trends are also reflected in the offer of agrochemicals and in the R&D activities conducted by companies associated with Agrofarma, for which the turnover from sales of products authorized for use in organic farming in 2023 is 134 million euros, equal to approximately 12% of the total turnover. A percentage destined to grow, if we consider that the products that can be used in organic farming represent 20% of the total, but, among those that will be launched over the next three years, the share rises to 30%, for a growth of + 102% of sales of agrochemicals containing active ingredients permitted in organic farming. Biotech companies in Italy are also growingwhose number has almost doubled in the last 15 years, with a total turnover in 2022 of approximately 13.6 billion euros.