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Entrepreneurial profiles of Italian professional farms

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  • Andrea Arzeni,
  • Concetta Cardillo,
  • Roberto Henke,
  • Roberta Sardone
Andrea Arzeni
CREA – Research Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy
Concetta Cardillo
CREA – Research Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy
Roberto Henke
CREA – Research Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy
Roberta Sardone
CREA – Research Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-16167

Published 2025-10-23

Keywords

  • Italian agriculture,
  • census,
  • entrepreneurial profiles,
  • market-oriented farms,
  • cluster analysis

How to Cite

Arzeni, A., Cardillo, C., Henke, R., & Sardone, R. (2025). Entrepreneurial profiles of Italian professional farms. Italian Review of Agricultural Economics. https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-16167

Copyright (c) 2025 Andrea Arzeni, Concetta Cardillo, Roberto Henke, Roberta Sardone

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper analyses the prevailing entrepreneurial profiles within Italy’s professional agricultural sector, using data from the 7th Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) Agricultural Census, 2020. Access to micro-data from the complete spectrum of Italian farms allowed us to perform to an extensive analysis of the entrepreneurial profiles. Moving from market-oriented farms with stable market relationships and a minimum threshold of economic production, we identified nine distinct profiles by using hierarchical cluster analysis and a set of structural and managerial indicators supported by the current literature. These profiles vary significantly in terms of the age of the farmers, the economic size of the farms, the type of farming, human capital, and strategic orientation. The age of the farmers is a particularly powerful variable to discriminate among the entrepreneurial profiles. Although young farmers are often more innovative than older ones, the spectrum of entrepreneurship is wide and diverse, especially regarding the diversification of activities. Our results confirm a complex picture of farm management in Italy, where corporate businesses integrated into the agro-food system coexist with small farms and part-time farmers. Such representation calls for more targeted public support policies that address specific needs and potential role of different types of farmers. 

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