The Agricultural Program of Fascist Italy

Abstract

Italy is essentially an agricultural country, although not without important industries. Within the relatively small area of the country a wide diversity of soil, elevation, rainfall, and temperature prevails. Social and economic conditions likewise vary greatly from place to place. Because of these widely varied physical, social, and economic conditions, the agriculture of Italy covers a range as wide as that covered by the agriculture of Europe. The kingdom as a whole, including the large islands of Sicily and Sardinia, has an area of 119,000 square miles and a population of more than 41 million inhabitants (one-fifth smaller in area than the state of California, with a population more than seven times as large). In population Italy ranks third of all continental European countries, being surpassed only by Russia and Germany. Although the climate is in general favorable to the production of many agricultural commodities, the land is swampy in many regions of the country. Thus, from the time of the Romans to our present day, Italy has suffered from malaria on account of the swamps of the Po River Valley, the Roman countryside, the province of Venetia, and most of southern Italy. In order to grasp fully the meaning of the present Italian agricultural situation, it is necessary to have in mind one of the main problems of Italy's economic life, i.e. its excess of population. Toward the end of the nineteenth century (1884), at the beginning of the twentieth (1903), and again a decade ago (1919-1922), Italy was shaken by very serious agrarian revolts. The fundamental economic cause of these movements was the excess of population. The great number of its inhabitants which, in the field of foreign policy, makes the pride and strength of Italy, arouses in the social life of the country some serious and difficult problems. A soil of limited area has to support a population which in less than fifty years (1881-1929) has increased from 28 to 41 million people. Moreover, southern Italy, which contributes very largely to this increase of population, is exclusively agricultural. There are no important industries in that part of the country to utilize the unemployed hands. There comes a time