The Mezzigiorno- Solving Italy's Problem Region

The Mezzogiorno region in Southern Italy is greatly affected as it accounts for a third of Italy’s population, half its unemployment and poor farming conditions. This report will outline some of the problems within the region and some solutions that will help to improve it and hopefully make it as successful as the North of Italy in time to come. The South of Italy has never been an important industrial region. It is isolated from the rest of Europe by poor transport links and there are very few natural resources, little money and limited skills. Most people are still living in hilltop villages and rural areas. The few towns on the coast have little industry to attract people. Many people migrate to the North, or to other European countries to find work.
Some environmental factors for the Mezzogiorno crisis are poor quality soil and poor farming equipment. The most popular job in the Mezzogiorno region is farming and the agricultural conditions in the South are substandard and the equipment used, unsuitable for the region’s main source of income. The main problem for the poor standard of farming is because of the many mountains and hills, which means that the land is high and steep. Farming is at a subsistence level, which means that farmers grow enough for their own needs, but have very little over to sell, therefore, because farmers have very little money they cannot afford to buy fertiliser to protect their crops. Much of the Mezzogiorno area is made up of hills and mountains, which means that there is less ground to plant crops. Also, the very hot weather prevents the crops from growing. As there is rainfall only in winter, growing crops during the harvesting months is difficult and the income not very high. This means there is a decline in produce and food for the people to trade. Due to the mountains and hills, the soil used for farming is also of very poor quality. This means, that the produce collected isn’t of as high standard as the same type of