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In Italy, the entire bio-economy sector has taken on considerable importance and is having very high revenues and employing many people.

Specifically, if we analyse each sector of the bioeconomy in Italy, agriculture is a very important sector. It contributes around EUR 31 billion (2.3%) to the value of GDP. In addition, the development of rural areas, plays a fundamental role especially in peripheral areas, which are characterised by difficult access to services of public interest compared to cities and smaller towns.

In the Italian context, rural diversification is very important, in fact, thanks to new tools, both digital and economic, rural areas can enjoy new life, redeeming themselves. In addition, thanks to the variety of territories and a rich, millenary culture, Italy boasts an unparalleled variety and richness in terms of food traditions. This characteristic represents the strength of Italian agriculture, which makes Italy competitive in agricultural and food markets.

In the Italian bio-based and circular economy, in terms of efficient resource management, protection of biodiversity and soil, sustainable land management, production of ecological and social services, valorisation and reuse of residues and waste, as well as in terms of production of bioenergy and organic products, through the adoption of sustainable production models and the efficient use of renewable resources, agriculture and forestry play a key role.

The Italian food industry, on the other hand, represents the second largest manufacturing sector in Italy and the third largest in Europe, after Germany and France. This sector, even though it has small, family-run companies, has been able to establish itself as a globally competitive sector thanks to its territorial excellence, and has also held its own during times of crisis in the domestic market.

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Figure 6. The food sector in Italy

In general, the food industry can find enormous opportunities in terms of innovation and growth in the bioeconomy sector. In this regard, it is important to highlight the work done by the national Agrifood Technology Cluster ‘CL.A.N.’, i.e. a multi-stakeholder network formed by the main players of the agrifood sector at national level, consisting of industrial groups, research centres and institutions. This cluster made an important contribution with the elaboration of a shared technology development roadmap. The objectives of this strategy are:

  • obtaining new food and/or animal feedstuffs, ingredients and/or bioactive compounds with high nutritional value from by-products generated in industrial processing in the agro-food sector;
  • adopting innovative processes to utilise waste by-products of the industrial transformation process in order to sell them on the market as new products for food, feed and the agricultural sector;
  • reduce disposal costs by identifying new revenues with agro-food by-products;
  • evaluating techniques to recover low-cost by-products and their functional components with limited environmental impact.

As far as forests are concerned, Italy's forest area is 11 million hectares, equivalent to 37% of the total national land area. This surface area requires continuous improvement. It is also worth noting that carbon absorption by managed forests covers 10% of the national Kyoto target for reducing CO2 emissions.

An important role in the forestry sector is played by the wood and wood processing industries, even though 80% of the wood used is imported from other countries. Therefore, one of the primary objectives that the sector must set itself is to increase the degree of self-supply. Solid biomass fuels, on the other hand, represent the main source of renewable energy on a national scale, making bioenergy a very dynamic segment within the forest/wood sector.

In addition to wood products, attention must also be paid to non-wood forest products and forest-related ecosystem services. The former, such as mushrooms, truffles, herbs, cork, etc., have a strong link to traditional knowledge, local economies and forest management practices. In fact, the economic activities related to this sector are growing and the production of wild products has become more structured and more important than wood production, in terms of direct and indirect income opportunities, job creation, visibility and development potential for rural areas. With regard to ecosystem services, although these are not, or are only marginally, included in official national accounting systems, they are increasingly recognised as an important component of forest ecosystems.

The biobased industry is that component of the bioeconomy that uses renewable biological resources in innovative industrial processes to produce goods, products and services from biomass. It operates on two fronts; one therefore concerns industrial sectors that traditionally use biological resources as the main material and others for which biomass is part of the raw material portfolio.

Thanks to the countless research projects in this field, the use of green catalysts and microbes, Italy can now boast a key role in the bio-industry. In this sector, there are remarkable developments in biomass, biofuels, bio-plastics, organic pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, biological materials for residential construction, anaerobic digestion processes, production of essential amino acids for animal feed and much more.

Chemistry based on biological resources is one of the few sectors in which our country is a leader in a highly technological context and in which major private investments have been made, significant projects for the reconversion of industrial sites hit by the crisis into bio-refineries for the production of biological products, particularly bio-chemicals, from renewable resources. This sector is also characterised by a network of large, medium and small enterprises.

Almost every region in Italy is characterised by having a coastline. To be precise, Italy has more than 8,000 km of coastline, which can count on multiple marine resources.

To date, there are many sea-related activities that are connected to the bioeconomy. These include, for example, fishing and aquaculture, the use of seaweed, microbes, enzymes, by-products and organic waste from fishing and the processing of aquaculture products, bio-monitoring and bio-remediation of sedimentary seawater systems. In addition, the number of people employed is always growing, placing Italy second in Europe in the fisheries sector.