Agriculture in Italy - features and specifics

The first garden of Europe - so often called Italy. The country supplies the world with a large number of garden fruits, citrus fruits, grapes and olives. Despite the wealth of land resources and favorable natural conditions, Italy's agriculture is the most backward sector of the country.

Economy of Italy

Italy, whose agriculture and industry is highly dependent on external energy resources, is characterized by significant differences in the profitability and specialization of the regions. The poorly developed north resists the poor agrarian south. The main type of management is small private enterprise with active participation of state regulation. Despite a number of economic crises, its GDP per capita is at the same level as that of France and Great Britain.

In the structure of world exports, Italy is one of the leaders in the supply of cars, tractors, mopeds and bicycles, and industrial equipment. The chemical industry exports plastic and textile fibers. A significant share in the economy of Italy is the fashion industry. The country produces a lot of clothes and shoes. Revenues from tourism form more than one-third of the country's GDP.

Agriculture in Italy gives the world high-quality olive oil, wine, fruit, pasta and cheese.

Characteristics of agriculture in Italy

The country is distinguished by a highly productive agrarian sector. This specialization of agriculture in Italy is due to favorable natural conditions, which allow us to grow temperate climate cultures and subtropical plants here. The main river Po is intensively used for irrigation.

In the foothills of the Alps, there are many meadows used for grazing cattle.

Agriculture in Italy has the following structure:

• Plant growing - field crop cultivation, vegetable growing and potato cultivation, horticulture and viticulture, floriculture,
• Livestock - raising cattle, sheep breeding, pig production.

Specialization of the agricultural sector

The population is provided with food products of own production by 75%, the remaining 25% are covered by imports from neighboring European countries. Agriculture in Italy is represented mainly by small farms, the average area of which is 7 hectares. A total of 6% of the country's population work here. Italy annually delivers to the market 6 million tons of fruit, 14 million tons of vegetables, collecting tobacco takes 1 place in Europe.

Among the agricultural lands of Italy, arable land occupies 35%, meadows and pastures - 19-20%, olive groves, orchards and vineyards - 11%.

In the north is the Padanskaya lowland. Here fertile lands are concentrated, on which sugar beet, soybean, cereals, corn and rice are grown. On the productivity of rice, Italy is in second place in the world after China. The economy in this part of the country has a capitalist form, is characterized by an intensive way of cultivation of crops, wide use of hired labor.

Agriculture in Italy in the south is mainly represented by small private farms specializing in the cultivation of citrus fruits - orange, mandarin and lemons. Grenades, olives and olives grow here. Because of the mountainous terrain, manual labor is more often used.

Grapes in Italy are grown everywhere. Virtually the whole crop is processed for wine.

Thanks to the subtropical climate and the widespread cultivation of vegetables in greenhouses, Italy delivers crop production to the world market before other countries.

Livestock in the country is poorly developed. Mostly they are engaged in small private traders, livestock in each farm is small.

Livestock grazing is mainly carried out in alpine meadows. Forage for livestock are grown on the fields of legumes and industrial crops.

Causes of backwardness and development prospects

Italy - a member of the "common market" of Europe on a contractual relationship. This reduces the potential of local agriculture. Reduction of crop areas naturally leads to a decrease in production volumes. In Italy, imports of their European Union countries of wheat, rye, meat, dairy products and eggs are increasing, which is a competition for local products.

Agriculture in Italy has traditionally specialized in growing citrus fruits, Mediterranean fruits and vegetables. However, within the framework of the "common market", the country had difficulty in defending the leadership in this sector. The loss of primacy in this sector would not only lead to a crisis in agriculture, but also hit Italy's economy as a whole.

The country has a mountainous and hilly terrain. This makes it impossible to use in many areas of technology, so inefficient and expensive manual labor is used.

The state sees the ways of the effective development of the agrarian sector in the expansion of economies and the transition to a capitalist form of management.