A senior school manager with a heart for agriculture, Patrizia Marini heads RENISA, the Italian Network of Agrarian Institutes, that is high schools preparing students aged 14-18 to undertake further studies or professional careers oriented to farming and more in general to the care of land and of the environment. “We represent a total of about 300 institutes all over the country that offer the traditional five years curriculum and, in some cases, the 5+1, the additional one being a super specialization as wine technician. Since two years, the offer has also been integrated with the 4+2 option, aligning Italy to the rest of Europe, in terms of school curriculum duration”. RENISA’s mission is to enhance agricultural studies, by setting the dialogue with policy makers and helping schools innovate. “We are facing a critical situation- she says – where it has been calculated that every year there is a shortage of 40.000 technicians in the agrifood sector at large. That refers to different types of profiles, from production to processing, logistics or management”.
Marini tours Italy to preach the need for change, to better equip students in view of the challenges they will face as young professionals. “Right now, the guidelines of the technical institutes are being modified with the national reform that is under way to adapt curricula to the emerging innovation needs. Our students do only one hour of informatics per week in Year 1. Concepts like agriculture 4.0 or data analysis are absent from the programme or left to the good will of individual teachers”.
Nevertheless, there is some light at the end of the tunnel, as the government is working at a reform, due to enter into force in the 2026-27 academic year, inspired by the principle of schools’ autonomy. “The idea – says Marini – is that every institute would have a certain autonomy, with the freedom to introduce subjects, based also on what they consider relevant for the territory in which they operate. We need a better mix of traditional basic subjects with new concepts like regenerative agriculture, or vertical farming. RENISA is currently developing models of timetables and curricula that we share with schools, also to make sure there would not be too many deviations from a common basis”. With the funds of the recovery and resilience facility many schools have been able to acquire new equipment, from chemical labs to hydroponic greenhouses. Yet, some regulatory issues remain, for instance allowing training on tractors, which still requires students to be in possession of a B Driving License, de facto limiting access to those already aged18”. In more general terms, concludes Marini, “we need to work at making agrifood related curricula more attractive for students. Many believe that agrarian institutes are attended by the children of farmers, but that’s not true. Many young people are attracted by the prospects of careers related to issues of sustainability, nature or food, but it is vital to push for constant innovation integrating competences in data analysis, which are more than ever necessary today”.