Precision agriculture and competitive advantage: Economic efficiency of the mechanized harvesting of Chardonnay and Nero d'Avola grapes

In this work, the results of the research activity carried out on wineries are presented to demonstrate the economic convenience of carrying out mechanical harvesting. After determining the break-even point, for the introduction of the grape harvester in the company, the production costs and the relative profitability of two cultivars (Chardonnay and Nero d'Avola) were estimated. The research results highlight that the wine entrepreneur can improve profit margins with mechanical harvesting, operating with his machine on a minimum business area of 41.62 ha, otherwise resorting to renting the operation is always convenient as lowering production costs improves economic margins. The positive effects are therefore recorded both in the case of introducing the machine into the company and in the case that the entrepreneur rents the machine.