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Storti: An Italian success story since 1956

Telling the fifty-year history of our company necessarily involves running through the development of agricultural mechanisation over the last half century, with particular reference to the zootechnics field. We have been lucky enough to have lived through the greatest revolution in the agricultural sector in human history, and, false modesty aside, to have made our contribution to it.

Logo Our story begins, in fact, at around the same time as that of the mechanisation of agriculture in Italy. By the late 1930s there was already great demand for tractors. The number of machines available for agriculture was extremely small (it is sufficient to consider that, at the time, mechanised ploughs covered only 14% of the farmed surface area). Annual production did not exceed 600 units and, for farmers, the cost of the imported models was practically unaffordable. In the ‘40s the war did not improve this situation. In fact, the start of the conflict definitively shut the door on the meagre influx of imported machines. These conditions led to the so-called “derivate”, tractors built by transforming other vehicles (automobiles, trucks or other: see Macchine per la terra: immagini e riflessioni sull’agricoltura nel ‘900 - Unacoma 2005).

When the war ended – and from this moment the country’s history and that of Ottorino Storti and his company started to weave together – the State set up the ARAR, a company dedicated to the recovery and sale in huge batches of allied and fascist equipment. Needless to say many Italians, among them Ottorino Storti, were able to bring about real economic miracles, demonstrating that typically Italian quality, tenaciousness.

The start of the ‘50s saw the first signs of an increase in the use of agricultural machinery. Thus, in 1955 national agriculture consisted of a myriad of small farms which together had a usable agricultural surface area of 23 million hectares (today we have a little over 13 million hectares). Only 27,000 tractors were used, over 70% of them in Northern Italy. Even more discouraging were the figures relating to public works vehicles, the greater part of which were animal-driven and still at that time only produced at a rate of 4,000 tonnes/ year.

The small size of the machinery fleet was also demonstrated by agricultural energy consumption, with costs less than 0.2% of gross marketable production (today the values are 30 times higher).
In the mid ‘50s, the main economic studies in the sector were still studying the technical/economic comparison between the horse and the walking tractor. Gradually, however, motor mowers, reaper-threshers (pulled and only later, self-propelled), simple machines for harvesting potatoes and beet, started to spread.

At the time, labour was the real work resource in agriculture, standing at 10 million workers.
It is funny to think that, today, national agriculture employs less than a million people (less than 5% of the active Italian population) and accounts for 2% of Italy’s gross domestic product. In the meantime, however, due mainly to agricultural mechanisation and to the development of genetics, productivity per hectare and per worker has increased enormously. Furthermore, the role of agriculture has changed.

In the post-war period, the objective was to produce foods to maintain the population. Today it is to guarantee the healthy condition of foodstuffs and the environment.
Wrongly or rightly, agriculture is asked to contribute substantially to improving quality of life.
Let us not forget, again taking a step into the past, that towards the end of the ‘40s even on the extremely fertile Padana plain production did not exceed 30 quintals for wheat and 35 quintals for corn. Today, the same fields yield 80 quintals of wheat and 140 of corn.
It would therefore be inappropriate to deal with the evolution of agricultural mechanisation, above all, that linked to the processing of raw materials for alimentary use, without mentioning changes in lifestyles and the nature of consumption in our society over the last few decades. 

In the post-war period, 60% of the earnings of Italian families were destined to the purchase of food (the greater part of which was food of vegetable origin, lacking a sufficient meat component, substituted in part by milk and eggs). The figures for average annual consumption speak clearly: 9.2 kg of beef and veal; 6.7 kg of pork; 2.4 kg of poultry (basically, one chicken a year); 52 litres of milk; 10 kg of eggs.
Today the situation has radically changed: less than 20% of family earnings are destined to the purchase of food. Average annual consumption per head, however, has increased enormously: 22.8 kg of beef and veal, 31.2 kg of pork, 18.5 kg of poultry, 14.7 kg of eggs, 82 litres of milk and 20 kg of fish and cheese.
The media are continually concerned with traditional products, the quality of agricultural food production, the importance of food for improved quality of life. It is often forgotten that behind all this lie the daily efforts of farmers, breeders and all those companies involved in the progress of the agricultural sector.

STORTI has made this its responsibility. We understood before anyone else that the progress of zootechnics also depends on revolutionary developments in the equipment and technologies available.
Mechanisation has thus made a vital contribution to the development of agriculture and zootechnics. In particular, the introduction of mixing wagons for Italian herds has been a decisive factor, not only in the rationalising of shed work, but also in terms of the improved productive performance and feed quality.
Progress made in the understanding of the physiology of dairy cows and beef cattle, and its application in terms of animal feed led above all to a rationalisation of cattle rearing.
Thus, the introduction of the Unifeed technique was a very important step in the organisational and alimentary management of milk and beef cattle rearing in Italy. The technique, conceived in the United States in the mid 30’s, was able to develop and spread only when the development of farm mechanisation provided cattle breeders with mixing wagons equipped for handling zootechnical feeds.

QuadroIn Italy, in particular, Unifeed only developed in the late 60’s. In this field, an important contribution was made by Ottorino Storti himself, who was among the first to understand that mixing wagons conceived in the USA were not adapted to the characteristics of European rearing farms.
Not only did STORTI understand the importance of designing mixing wagons capable of producing foods adapted to the physiological characteristics of both the dairy and beef cattle.
Initially, Unifeed only concerned farms with beef cattle where there is a problem with collecting and dispensing significant quantities of silo corn.
The mixing wagon was very simple, with horizontal augers without blades, designed for use only with ready-cut forage with added concentrates and/or flour.

On dairy farms, Unifeed appeared only in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when successful experiments finally won over sceptical farmers. Mixing wagons were equipped with blades to cut hay, whose use was extremely common at the time, subsequently replaced by higher-performance feed obtained mainly from silage.
In the cattle feeding sector, the Unifeed model radically changed shed operations, dictating an analogous change in the cultivation of forage.
Over these past fifty years, STORTI has constantly had a central role. It has been a fascinating, difficult, but always stimulating journey. The fact that we have been there for farmers, breeders and technicians has always been a source of great satisfaction and pride for us.

Our history, but it isn’t over: it continues, as producers’ requirements increase. They will not want for the support of a company that has imposed itself in Italy and then embarked on the international market, using its great resources, entrepreneurial abilities and know-how.