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08 November 2020 Almost 1 in 3 families (32%) who live in the countryside does not have a broadband connection with difficulties in accessing online lessons with their teachers.

This is what emerges from a Coldiretti elaboration of Istat data in reference to the 3 million and 700 thousand students who, according to Tuttoscuola, will be in integrated distance learning as a result of the last Dpcm that came into force with the extension of the Covid emergency.



Only 76% of Italian households have internet access and just 75% have a broadband connection but the situation worsens considerably in rural areas with just 68% of citizens having broadband connection in municipalities with less than two thousand inhabitants, according to Coldiretti elaborations on Istat data for 2019.



"We deal every day with unsustainable delays on telematic infrastructures and it is therefore strategic to overcome the digital divide that breaks the country between areas served by broadband and others not, between cities and countryside, to explode the enormous resources that the territory can offer ", says the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini.



"The availability of high-capacity Internet access to allow online teaching is important for reducing the isolation of rural areas and at the same time making anti-contagion measures more effective considering that every day from the countryside, children move to local buses and trains to reach the larger centers where they find schools and services often absent in small municipalities. The heavy Italian digital divide must therefore be bridged - underlines Coldiretti - in order to make the most of all the potential of new technologies in the countryside: from online school for remote refresher courses up to agriculture 4.0 to obtain an increase in productivity accompanied by cost reduction and in favor of environmental sustainability but also to seize the opportunities of tourism in inland areas and online commerce in this difficult time ".



From drones that check the status of crops in flight to computerized surveillance systems for irrigation and fertilizers, from the use of technological traps against harmful parasites to the blockchain for food traceability are just some of the innovations possible with the digitization of Italian villages.

For this reason Coldiretti has signed an agreement with Tim and Bonifiche Ferraresi to bring ultra-broadband to companies and support the great innovation potential of the sector with new technological solutions for the benefit of the country's economic recovery, accelerating the digital transition of Made in Italy agri-food. .



"The new digital technologies - concludes Prandini - are a strategic tool to restart from a present that has to deal with the coronavirus emergency that is putting us to the test but which has also made us discover the importance of innovation for a country like Italy which suffers heavy delays compared to other European partners ".