Italian agriculture is changing, reducing the share of some of its traditional crops and becoming more dependent on imports, while products such as soy, milk, and poultry are gaining ground. This is the picture painted by Istat, which analyzed the trends in the main agricultural and livestock productions between 2006 and 2025, highlighting structural transformations affecting cultivated areas, yields, livestock, and foreign trade.
The most significant declines concern the main arable crops, starting with corn, which in nearly twenty years has lost 51,2% of its cultivated area and 42,7% of its production, despite a 17,4% increase in yield per hectare. In 2025, the area devoted to this crop still exceeded 500 hectares, but domestic production, amounting to just under 55 million quintals, has now been surpassed by the 70 million quintals imported.
Durum wheat, which retains a central role thanks to its ties to the Italian pasta industry, is also declining, but its acreage and production have declined by 15,5% and 9,3%. For soft wheat, the decline in production has reached 21,4%, exceeding the decline in acreage, which has stagnated at -12,3%, resulting in a 10,4% reduction in yield per hectare.
Domestic cereal production is increasingly insufficient to meet domestic needs. In 2025, wheat imports reached 97 million quintals, compared to Italian production of approximately 59,5 million, while for corn, purchases from abroad have almost four times higher than in 2006, further accentuating the dependence of domestic livestock on international feed markets.
Bucking the trend, crops more closely tied to protein production and animal feed are growing. Soybeans increased their acreage by 69,1% and their production by 94,6%, while monophyte grasses recorded increases of 106,8% and 97,1%, respectively. Waxy corn and legumes also performed well.
The decline also affects the fruit sector, where production has declined in eleven of the fourteen species examined. The most severe crisis concerns pears, which have lost 60,6% of their production and 52,8% of their acreage since 2006, followed by nectarines, peaches, hazelnuts, almonds, oranges, and cherries.
At the same time, the reliance on imports increased: purchases from abroad increased by 413,6% for peaches, 199,1% for pears, 144,3% for almonds, and 144,1% for hazelnuts. In 2025, imported volumes of almonds and hazelnuts nearly equaled their respective domestic production.
The exceptions were clementines, kiwis, and apples, whose production increased by 20,3%, 17,8%, and 13,2%, respectively. Apples performed particularly well, despite a 10,6% reduction in acreage, thanks to a 26,7% increase in yield per hectare.
Among the iconic products of Made in Italy, wine has shown substantial stability, decreasing from 49,6 million hectoliters in 2006 to 47,8 million in 2025, a decrease of 3,6%. Over the same period, exports rose from 18,8 to 21 million hectoliters, and the share of Italian wine sold abroad increased from 39,9% to 44% of production.
The situation is more challenging for olive oil, with production dropping 37,6%, from 603,3 to 378,6 million liters. In 2025, a full 298 million liters, equal to 78,6% of Italian production, were exported, while domestic demand was met by imports of 565 million liters, a volume equal to one and a half times the entire national production.
Despite these challenges, Italy maintains a leading role in European agriculture: in 2025, it accounted for 8,7% of the EU's utilized agricultural area and was the EU's leading producer of hazelnuts, with a 75,2% share. It also accounts for 52,8% of rice, 43,2% of durum wheat, and 42,1% of open-air tomatoes.
The transformation also affects livestock farming. Between 2006 and 2025, sheep numbers decreased by 28,1%, pigs by 15,6%, and cattle by 12,2%, falling from 6,1 to 5,4 million heads. The only exceptions are buffalo, which nearly doubled with a growth of 92,6%, and goats, which increased by 3,4%.
The decline in livestock production is reflected in red meat slaughters: the weight of beef and buffalo meat decreased by 40,9%, that of sheep and goat meat by 56,2%, and that of pork by 16,9%. Meanwhile, poultry slaughters increased by 53% in terms of number of animals and 56,8% in terms of weight produced, confirming the growing importance of white meat.
Finally, a different trend emerges for milk: in 2024, 138,4 million quintals were harvested, 27,2% more than in 2006, despite the decline in cattle numbers. Growth was supported by an increase in average productivity per cow, from 58 to 86,2 quintals. Among processed products, cheese and cream increased by 17,7% and 18%, respectively, while butter and fermented milk decreased.
