A journey through time, through images, testimonies and archive documents, to rediscover the often invisible but fundamental role of women in Italian agriculture.

The SDF Historical Archive holds photographs, house organs, brochures and advertising catalogues from the 1950s to the end of the 20th century that tell a story of dedication, expertise and social transformation.

Although the collective imagination often associates agricultural work with men, women have always been active protagonists in the Italian countryside. Already during the First World War, many of them took the place of the men who had left for the front, taking on activities deemed masculine and thus contributing to the continuity of production in the primary sector.

After the Second World War, this female presence was consolidated and diversified. The figures of the rice weeder, in northern Italy, and the olive harvester, in the south, represent just a couple of the many expressions of women’s agricultural work. Women working in the fields and cattle sheds, often accompanied by their children and husbands: a family dimension that emerges forcefully in the many period photographs, where you can almost breathe in the sense of community and cooperation typical of rural life.

Among the most significant testimonies is a collection of images dedicated to the course for tractor drivers at the Institute of Agricultural Mechanics of Treviglio in the late 1960s. At a time of great social change – between the emancipation of women and the modernisation of work – these photographs tell the story of the constant acquisition of technical skills and a new awareness of a professional role.

The agricultural woman of the 1970s and 1980s is no longer just a co-worker: she is an entrepreneur, a skilled worker, able to manage a farm, prune vineyards and orchards, grow vegetables and flowers, and master a modern tractor.

This collection from the SDF Historical Archive is more than a historical testimony. It’s a tribute to every woman who, discreetly and diligently, contributed to the development of Italian agriculture, transforming their work into a form of progress.