Bologna – A picture conditioned by the heavy weather and climate factors of last year and which nevertheless recorded growth in the food and beverage industry, in exports with a value in 2023 of over 9,700 million euros and in employment. During 2023, the value of agricultural production in Emilia-Romagna suffered a reduction of 9.2% with a loss of almost 550 million euros and revenues that went from almost 5.9 billion in 2022 to 5.3 billion in 2023. The origin of this trend is the substantial drop in field production, determined by the adverse weather that characterized much of the year with drought, late frosts and the flood that devastated much of the territory of Romagna, compromising many crops. The value of PDO and PGI products is very strong, with a production value of almost 4 billion euros, including food products (3.5 billion) and wines (455 million), equal to approximately 40% of the national total.
The picture is taken from the 2023 Agri-food Report – presented this morning in Bologna – which highlights a fundamental economic system for Emilia-Romagna, capable of holding up and evolving. The analysis was carried out in collaboration between the Region (Agriculture and Agri-food, Hunting and Fishing Department) and Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna, with the contribution of Art-ER. The works, opened by the regional Agriculture Councilor, Alessio Mammi, were attended, among others, by Giuseppe Molinari, President of the Modena Chamber of Commerce and Guido Caselli (Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna). “Emilia-Romagna is a laboratory called to face important challenges and the strong agri-food vocation of the territory – say the president, Stefano Bonaccini and the councilor, Alessio Mammi -, puts us in front of transversal dynamics due not only to climate change and the issue of sustainability, but also to new consumer choices, evolving markets and the ability to combine quality with advanced digital technologies. To address all this, the Region stands alongside the entire sector, to consolidate and grow its positioning on the markets, enhance products with regulated quality and strengthen an agriculture that increasingly must combine support for business income and sustainability”.
According to Giuseppe Molinari: “Capacity is the key to understanding that this year’s Agri-food Report gives us: as an image of the sector in Emilia-Romagna, in a year forever marked by the flood. Ability to innovate, cultivate skills to understand changes in customers in every part of the world, manage new value chains in procurement and distribution. The value of agri-food is the fruit of this determination, of companies that are the first to experience the effects of climate change and that must always be able to transform their work into unique excellence, safety and quality every day”.
The photograph of the agri-food system of Emilia-Romagna highlights the dynamics and insights into the sectors of production, transformation and foreign trade of agricultural and food products and is accompanied by analyzes on the future of the sector in light of the flood events of May last year which hit the agricultural and processing sectors hard. The most significant data sees the growth in 2023 of the production activity of the food and beverage industry +2.2%, with 4,604 active agri-food companies. Emilia-Romagna’s exports of agri-food products exceeded 9,700 million euros, 15.7% of what Italy sold abroad. Payments made by the Region during 2023 amount to approximately 700 million euros. Of these, 98.2 million come from the regional budget. The other payments are broken down as follows: 323 million direct payments from the Community Agricultural Policy, 154 million from funds from the Rural Development Programme. Rural Development Complement, 120 million the part financed by the Common Market Organization, among which stand out fruit and vegetables for 95.4 and wine for 22.3 million. The Report will be available on the Region’s portal in dedicated page.
