Florence (900 million), Siena (667 million) and Pistoia (584 million) queens of exports at the table. These are the three regions on the regional podium which alone contribute to 60% of the value of all agri-food exports. Theirs was a fundamental contribution to the historic record of products abroad which in 2023 approached 3.5 billion euros in value with a 5% leap compared to the year before. At the foot of the podium are Lucca in fourth place (358 million) while in fifth place we find Arezzo (282 million). Then all the others: Livorno (246 million), Grosseto (230 million), Pisa (169 million), Prato (27 million) and Massa Carrara (3.5 million).
To say it is Coldiretti Tuscany which has drawn up the ranking of the regions with the greatest export vocation based on the analysis of ISTAT data for 2023. “Agri-food is an increasingly important locomotive of the Tuscan economy, a strategic sector from the point of view of employment among direct employees and indirect. – he sentences Letizia Cesani, president of Coldiretti Tuscany – The growth in exports is widespread and constant across the territory, confirming the extraordinary demand for the products made in Tuscany on international markets that are associated by consumers around the world with quality, food safety, traceability and transparency. Values that on the shelves allow companies to get back, in economic terms, a fair compensation without which they could not survive. However, this growth must be supported by strengthening agriculture and protecting consumer citizens from deception. The risk without adequate transparency is to bring “Italianized” products to the table but not Italian because they are made from foreign raw materials. This is why the customs code has ended up in the spotlight which, with the final processing, allows the product to obtain the Italian identity card. Precisely to overcome this anomaly, the collection of signatures began in Italy and seven European states with the aim of obtaining over one million signatures. But controls on products arriving from non-EU countries must also be strengthened, often made by exploiting labor or using production and phytosanitary techniques prohibited by us which cause the prices of national agricultural products to collapse”.
Despite the prolonged geopolitical instability that affects the markets and the creeping inflation that continues to be felt on family accounts, the Made in Tuscany agri-food sector has continued to march forward, breaking one record after another. In the year just ended the value of wine, oil, plants, vegetables, fruit, pasta and all the other products in the basket grew further. Wine is the most requested regional product with almost 1.2 billion euros (-4%) together with oil and derivatives with 996 million euros (+16.6%) and the nursery sector with 375 million euros ( -0.5%).
The primacy of made in Tuscany abroad it is driven by one of the greenest agriculture in Europe with – highlights Coldiretti Tuscany – with 34% of the organic surfaces and almost 10 thousand operators involved, 467 traditional food specialties and 90 PDO and PGI food and wine chains supported by the project Friendly Campaignthe largest network of direct sales farmers’ markets.
