AgricultureID

Region · IT-45

Emilia-Romagna

Emilia-Romagna is dominated by the humid subtropical Po plain, with hot, muggy summers, cold, often foggy winters and rainfall in all seasons; the Apennine foothills to the south are cooler and wetter, and the Adriatic coast is milder.

Major crop systems

  • Soft and durum wheat and other cereals on the plain
  • Orchard fruit — pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots and kiwifruit — with the region a leading Italian and European fruit producer
  • Processing tomatoes and field vegetables for the canning industry
  • Forage (lucerne and maize silage) underpinning the Parmigiano-Reggiano dairy chain
  • Sugar beet and grain maize in rotation

Major livestock systems

  • Dairy cattle for Parmigiano-Reggiano, a defining PDO system of the region
  • Pigs for Parma and other cured hams (Prosciutto di Parma, mortadella)
  • Poultry and egg production on the plain

Agricultural land: The deep, fertile alluvial soils of the Po and Reno plains make this one of Italy’s most productive and highly organised agricultural regions, tightly linked to a famous food-processing and PDO/PGI economy. Irrigation: Irrigation from the Po, Apennine rivers and the Canale Emiliano-Romagnolo is widely used for fruit, tomatoes, vegetables and forage maize, and is increasingly important as summers grow hotter and the lower Po faces salt-water intrusion in drought years.

Agroecological zones: Cfa (Humid subtropical), Cfb (Oceanic (marine west coast))

Documented crops & livestock

Official institutions

  • Assessorato Agricoltura e agroalimentare, Regione Emilia-Romagna — Regional department of agriculture and agri-food.
  • ISTAT — Italian National Institute of Statistics.
  • CREA — Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura).

Data coverage & limitations

Descriptive profile; subnational statistics for Emilia-Romagna are published by the Regione, ISTAT and CREA and are not reproduced numerically here.

  • Regional boundaries and the classification of agricultural land follow the official ISO 3166-2 subdivision and national statistical definitions.
  • Any statistics are dated and source-specific; consult the year and dataset version at the cited official body rather than treating figures as current.
  • Much of the region’s output is tied to specific PDO/PGI supply chains, so production is better understood through those denominations than through generic commodity totals.

Sources

This article draws on the following authoritative sources. See our sources & methodology for how they are selected.

  1. [1]European Commission — Agriculture and rural development (opens in a new tab)

    European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture

    Authoritative

    Cited for: EU Common Agricultural Policy framework and Eurostat regional farm statistics

    Type:
    Government agency
    Jurisdiction:
    European Union
    Accessed:
    2026-07-12
  2. [2]FAO — Food and Agriculture Organization (opens in a new tab)

    Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

    Authoritative

    Cited for: Global crop and livestock production context

    Type:
    Intergovernmental organization
    Jurisdiction:
    Global
    Accessed:
    2026-07-12