A lot of foreigners dream of starting a new life. They are tired of their busy life, the bad climate and they dream of starting of a new life in a quiet place, in the country, preferable where the sun shines 300 days on 365.

One of the possibilities to achieve their dream is to open an “agriturismo”, better known as farm tourism. Most people think that the word “agriturismo” is connected to renting rooms and in the meanwhile producing their own wine, olive oil, cheese, … These products we offer to our guests and what is left we sale as “prodotti tipici” on the local market.

This responds at what we call in Italian “la dolce vita”

About 5 years ago in fact this was still reality. One bought an existing “azienda agricola” (farm) and with help from the European Community and Italy itself, installed a lot of sleeping rooms and earned a lot of money. Most of his time the owner dedicated to the tourism and what was left he spent on the production of the “prodotti tipici”.

But as all fairytales have an end, also this happy story finished. Because the incentives given by Europe mainly where dedicated to give some help to the farmers and because at the end of the agriculture few or nothing was left, the government decided to change the law and to avoid the abuses regarding the “agriturismo”

The two headlines of this law are the following:

1. The hours to dedicate to room renting may not exceed the hours to dedicate to the agriculture

2. The earning by the room renting may not exceed the earning by agriculture

This is a very important modification of the old law with consequence that an “agriturismo” has become a busy activity. To simplify the work it’s possible to hand over the agriculture in part or completely to a local farmer. With the local farmer the owner usually makes a contract and in this way the owner can spend almost all his time to the room renting and thus to the direct contact with the guests.

For those who are searching a balance between producing wine, olive oil, cheese, … and room renting the running of an “agriturismo” is an ideal activity. Furthermore there are a lot of tax benefits that makes it even more interesting.

Ing. Günther Desaever

www.livingintuscany.eu