Destination Europe: The Transformation of Agriculture Between Decline and Renaissance

The objective of the work is to retrace the main contributions of 50 years of studies and research by the group of agricultural economists of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ancona/Università Politecnica delle Marche. These contributions share a common vision: the transformations of the primary sector in Italy and in the Marche region, are the original result of two equally powerful but largely independent forces. On the one hand, a tumultuous manufacturing development, territorially unbalanced and passively suffered. On the other hand, the centrality assigned to the agricultural sector by a Europe under construction and which has made the primary sector a privileged laboratory, not only as a recipient of resources, but also as an outpost in the definition of policy strategies and design. The originality of the contributions of this group of scholars lies in the analysis of these transformations from an openly critical perspective towards the then prevalent, often unilateral and hagiographic, readings of a development model and a certain idea of Europe. That model is nowat an end; and that idea of Europe must be overcome. It is therefore this critical perspective that makes these contributions still relevant and the driving force of present and future research.