L'industria alimentare

The aim of this paper is to highlight the structural and operational features of the first two components of the agro-food system in Molise: the agricultural sector and the food industry. Regarding the first component, data drawn from Istat allow to draw the main patters of development over the period 2000-2007. In particular, from 2000 to 2007 the situation of the primary sector was almost unchanged in Molise. At the moment, it is still characterized by the same elements of backwardness: small firms, high rate of senility of employees, high production costs, low competitive products in foreign markets. These factors generate strong impact on the economic and productive efficiency, especially for firms located in mountain and marginal areas of the region. However, these firms are still able to survive thanks to the introduction in Agenda 2000 of the concept of “multifunctional agriculture”. A special attention is paid to the food industry and to food chains characterized by specific factors depending on the local context in which they operate. A more updated picture of the agricultural production and of the production process is built on the basis of data provided by the Camera di Commercio of the two provinces in Molise. Data allow to identify, as for the agriculture sector, the patterns of growth concerning the production process in the food industry in the last decade. More specifically, data show that companies operating in the manufacturing sector were 2,815 in 2008. Of these companies, 811 (i.e. 28.8 per cent) were active in the food and beverages sector. Moreover, the incidence of firms active in Molise on the total number of firms operating in the food sector in Italy is 0.8 per cent. In terms of the number of employees, value added and exports the incidence is, respectively, equal to 0.7, 0.5 and 0.2 per cent. To sum up, from the analysis it can be inferred that, as for the agricultural sector, the food industry shows some weaknesses: fragmentation, family-based ownership of firms, difficulty in accessing credit, difficulty in managing trade relationships. From a more disaggregated analysis of the data, it can be inferred that the most important branches of the food industry in Molise are: milk, oil and fats, pasta and meat. These products are usually produced by firms operating in areas of the territory particularly suitable for the production of traditional products and characterized by a high level of integration between the first and the second phase of the production process (i.e. the production of raw materials and the firms and second transformation of products).