Economic aspects of sicilian agriculture

Sicilian agriculture is characterized by a rather small farm size, which represents an obstacle to he implementation of technological innovation process and limits the horizontal and vertical sector integration. The aim of this paper is to analyze the Sicilian agriculture through available statistical data. The value added of primary sector at basic prices in Sicily, during the two-year period of 2004-05, was 3.2 billion of euros. The UAA is distributed in a quite uniform way among field crops (476,099 ha), tree crops (480,023 ha) and fodder crops (485,263 ha). Among the field crops, the most common species was the durum wheat, while for the tree crops the olive tree was the most important. Lastly, referring to foreign trade, Sicily has a heavily negative trade (10.0 billion of current euros); however if we analyze the agro-industrial component, we notice that Sicily was one of the few Italian regions with a credit balance (81.1 millions of euros). The need to protect and re-launch the agricultural sector in Sicily is however determined by the position that has in the regional economy in relation to the employment generated, to the particular nature of territory, to the large range productions, to their value and that one of the allied activities.