Italy: One in three farms run by a woman

In a few years the share of "pink" firms in the agricultural sector has increased from 30.4 to 33.3% today, transforming agriculture in the sector with the highest rate of feminization together with the service sector. That's what emerges from a CIA-Italian Farmers Confederation analysis on Istat data.

Today, the "lady farmers" are a small army running nearly 540,000 farms across the country. With creative, efficient, quality-oriented and caring farms, they contribute for € 9 billion to the added value of agriculture (about 26 billion) - highlights the CIA - The fields of reference of these modern farmers are in fact, the organic niche products DOP and IGP, wine making, and all activities related to social and the art of hospitality. These companies are open not only to tourists, but to students, the disabled, the elderly and they do it by creating cottages, social farms, agricultural nurseries and agricultural nests.

In more detail - CIA adds -in the agritourism sector depends on women for almost half of the sector turnover. Of nearly 20,000 facilities throughout Italy, about 40% are managed by women who each year have a turnover of approximately 500 million Euro out of a total of 1.1 to 1.2 billion of the industry. Even in the wine industry, as much as 35% of the workforce is female.