The 115th edition of Fieragricola is synonymous with multifunctionality in agriculture. A peculiarity that the international event, from 26 to 29 January 2022 in Verona, has been developing for 20 years now.
In fact, on May 18, 2001, the then President of the Republic issued Legislative Decree 228 on “Orientation and modernization of the agricultural sector”, known as the “Agricultural Orientation Law”. A provision that aimed to introduce elements that would innovate agriculture on an organizational level, redefining the figure of the agricultural entrepreneur and expanding the bed of connected and support activities, which – based on the data processed by Crea-Mipaaf – amount to approximately 7 billion in agriculture, equal to 12.2% of total agricultural production (which is worth 57.3 billion euros).
Thus began the era of multifunctionality in agriculture, declined immediately from the 115th edition of Fieragricola as an opportunity for growth and income diversification for the agricultural sector.
It was one of the main post-war reforms in agriculture, which proved to be very effective thanks to the energy transmitted to the sector by young people and women. “A law that has managed to relaunch the sector also in the territories and in the innermost areas of the country and to become a reference model also abroad”, as recalled to the Press Office of Veronafiere by the then Minister of Agricultural Policies, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, today president of the Univerde Foundation. «Today FAO talks about family farming, female agricultural entrepreneurship, environmental agriculture. Thanks to the Agricultural Orientation Law, supported by Coldiretti and the entire agricultural world, we anticipated these issues, promoting employment and at the same time introducing the themes of integral ecology also promoted by Pope Francis in the Encyclical Laudato Si ‘. ”
Pecoraro Scanio also points out that “When the Agricultural Orientation Law was drawn up, we had very well in mind the agritourism, the farmers market, the transformation and direct sales, but we did not think about all the subsequent declinations that the law allowed, with farms didactics, agri-kindergartens, social agriculture ».
For Italy, as stated by Angelo Frascarelli, professor of Agricultural Economics and Policy at the University of Perugia: “The first agricultural orientation law was actually the most important law of the last 20 years, which led to the widening of the definition of agricultural activity , making multifunctionality feasible, allowing the farmer to carry out related activities such as agritourism, wine pouring in the company, educational and social farms, the possibility of taking out contracts from the Public Administration, for example for street cleaning or shoveling snow, the production of renewable energy, all while remaining in the agricultural sector. We are talking about new revenue opportunities for farmers, which amount to about 7 billion euros for Italy “.