ABSTRACT
The farms of intermediate economic dimensions tend to represent the area of indeterminateness. The investigation covered 368 farms, equivalent to 16% of the total number in Garfagnana, and a Cultivated Surface Area of more than 23% of the total. The presence of at least one family member involved full-time on the farm permits the hypothesis of a greater exploitation of farm resources in the event of favourable institutional and market conditions. The situation of the farms in the economically valid class is different. The total absence of both family members professionally involved in the agricultural activity and of external income, raises fears of mechanisms of abandonment of production and economic emargination. It is only the higher income level that allows us to suspend judgement on the evolution of these farms, underlining their difference from those in the lower economic class.
