Agricultural Machines
I - How Italian agricultural mechanization developed
Italy has a temperate climate favourable to farming and had a primarily agricultural economy for millennia, but after World War II, it underwent radical political, social and economic changes. Together with the freeing up of international trade relations. markets, these gave a decisive impulse to various sectors of industry whose expansion was sufficient to absorb in large part a major shift from rural to urban employment. The result was a very rapid transformation from a primarily agricultural country into one of the leading industrial nations in the world.
The massive exodus of manpower from agriculture, which between 1950 and 2006 shifted over seven million workers from the land to industry created an urgent need for rapid, intense agricultural mechanization because of the rapid diminishing rural labour-force. The extent of the process can be seen from how tractor production and sales evolved, the tractor being the basic item of farm equipment which can serve as an index of mechanization.
In 1945, Italian farms had about 52,000 tractors, a figure that rose to about 1.6 million by 2005. Developing and modernizing its equipment, manufacturers perfected their techniques and proved able to cater for the growing needs of farmers. For many years, a major stimulus came from imported tractors, which pitted domestic makes against the major brands in the world. Yet Italian-made tractors account for most of those in use in the country.
At the same time as developing their production, manufacturers also went out to win foreign markets, a difficult challenge which required them to achieve continual qualitative improvements so as to cope with competition from countries with a more advanced industry.
The upshot has been the affirmation of Italian machines all over the world. In 1945, Italian tractor and agricultural machine exports were worth less than €400,000; in 2009, almost €3.9 billion.
Currently, Italy is a world leader in tractor production, with only 4,700 in 1950 rising to over 82,000 in 2006.
This expansion has been matched by a similar evolution in the production of agricultural equipment of all kinds - for tilling, sowing, fertilizer distribution, plant protection, irrigation, harvesting, initial processing of farm products and subsequent transformation, and specialized transportation. Gardening equipment has also enjoyed a significant expansion and is now placed on foreign markets in very large quantities.
Industry has directed its efforts to making all the equipment needed for agriculture, in a wide range of types that can satisfy the very varied needs of Italy's highly diversified agriculture. Thanks to its great length, Italy covers a range of climates which are also diversified between the plains and hill and mountain zones. The variety of terrain and the fragmentation of land ownership are factors in the diversification of crops and, hence, the machines needed by individual farms. Thanks to this great variety of machines and equipment for all types of terrain and crop, farmers in other countries will for the most part have no difficulty in finding something appropriate to their needs.
TRACTORS - AGRICULTURAL MACHINES - SEMI-ASSEMBLED TRACTORS
Production Exports Imports - Trade Balance
1945 - 2006 Quantity in weight
II - Production and sales of tractors and agricultural machines
Italy's agricultural machine industry is No. 1 in the world for the range of its products and second in the world, after the United States, for turnover.
The following is a summary of the main figures for production and sales (in €):
ITALIAN MANUFACTURES - 2006
MANUFACTURERS' SITUATION - 2006s
Agricultural machine production (tractors, agricultural and gardening machinery, components)
THE IMPORT/EXPORT RATIO FOR AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY
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