Sustainability, Innovation and Biological Technology in Wine Production: An Empirical Analysis

The agri-food industry is strongly connected to environmental issues of sustainability; the very concept of quality agri-food goes hand in hand with the development of crops and production methods that protect the territory, and which increasingly reduce the use of substances harmful to humans and the environment (Casini et al, 2010; Cantino et al., 2018). This type of reasoning can be applied to the wine sector which has traditionally shown great attention to the environmental aspect, recognizing in this element a factor of wine quality (Gilinsky et al., 2015). As pointed out in the First Report on the Sustainability of Wine (http://www.vinosostenibile.org), awareness of the technical and commercial importance of the link between characteristics of the place of production and characteristics and identity of the wine led already in the 19th century to the development of the concept of territory and subsequently, with increasing sensitivity to social and environmental issues, many companies, also with a view to corporate social responsibility, have adopted innovations in corporate processes aimed at greater respect for the environment (Szolnoki, 2013; Siepmann, 2018). The wine world has reacted to the challenge of sustainable development through the development of collective initiatives (Castellini et al., 2014) for the implementation of sustainability programs (Roualt et al., 2016) for the analysis and evaluation of the production processes in the companies involved, with a view to continuous improvement, sharing of best practices for internal and external communication of performance achieved in terms of sustainability (Olaru et al., 2014). In Italy, the world of winegrowing has positevely reacted to the challenge of sustainable development. In the past twenty years, attention to the issue of environmental sustainability has increased more and more, year after year. The reasons are manifold, both environmental, economic and ethical. According to data published by SINAB (National Information System on Organic Agriculture), since 2010 the area for organic agriculture in Italy has increased by almost 800,000 hectares and 27 thousand farms (SINAB, 2019). The data as at 31 December 2018 therefore confirm the growth of the organic farming sector while maintaining the positive trend, as organic areas increased by 2.6% compared to 2017, reaching almost 2 million hectares. Most of the agricultural sectors have recorded an increase in the biological area. Growth for vines and olives is more contained (with only a plus of 1%) (SINAB, 2019). As for the regional distribution of biological surfaces, the largest extension was recorded in Sicily with 385,356 hectares, followed by Puglia with 263,653 hectares, Calabria with 200,904 hectares and Emilia-Romagna with 155,331 hectares. Compared to 2017, biological areas in Sicily and Calabria decreased by 10% and 1% respectively, while in Puglia and Emilia-Romagna they increased by 4% and 15% respectively. The biological surface of these four regions holds 51% of the entire national biological surface (SINAB, 2019). At the end of 2018 in Italy it was recorded that 79,046 businesses were included in the certification system for organic agriculture, recording a 4% increase compared to 2017. It is noted that 58,954 exclusive producers (farms) show a 3% increase over the previous year (SINAB, 2019). Of the total area cultivated in Italy, organic grows to affect 15.5% only of the national UAA (Utilized Agricultural Area), given that in 2017 it grows by one percentage point compared to 2016. From the processing of the surface data, it is clear that on every 100 hectares of UAA are organic: 5.6 hectares in the North-West, 9.3 hectares in the North-East, 20.1 hectares in the Center and in the South and 19.2 hectares in the Islands. Organic farms in Italy, on the other hand, represent 6.1% of total farms. This figure is uniform in all areas of the country. As regards the average size of the farms that make up the Italian organic sector, the average surface area was 28.2 hectares. Larger company areas have been registered in the Center, South and Islands, while North-East and North-West are smaller (SINAB, 2019).