Land 2023, 12, 301. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020301 www.mdpi.com/journal/land Article The Farm’s Orientation towards Sustainability: An Assessment Using FADN Data in Italy Conceta Cardillo *, Antonella Di Fonzo and Claudio Liberati Council for Agricultural Research and Economics—Research Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, via Barberini, 36, 00187 Rome, Italy * Correspondence: conceta.cardillo@crea.gov.it Abstract: The new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period 2023–2027 commits farmers towards achieving ambitious environmental objectives through farm organization and manage- ment. This European agricultural policy has adapted to the contemporary challenges faced by the new model of agricultural development. It aims to enhance the contribution of agriculture to the EU’s environmental and climate objectives while providing beter targeted support to small-scale farmers to promote farms’ competitiveness. The main objective of this paper is to describe Italian farms and classify them into groups based on their main characteristics, as well as to analyze their performance and behavior in terms of sustainability and competitiveness. The novelty and innova- tiveness of this study are found in the data used; a 2020 dataset from the Italian Farm Accounting Data Network (FADN) was used. The quality of FADN data in farm sustainability assessment is widely acknowledge in the literature. To achieve the purpose of this study, a multivariate analysis, in particular, the Principal Components Analysis (PCA), and a Cluster Analysis (CA) were applied. These analyses helped us to obtain the factorial axes which then enabled us to identify economic information on farms, and a beter interpretation of farmers’ aptitude to undertake environmentally friendly actions. As a result, eight groups of farms were identified, and their characteristics and performance were described at Italian district level. The results of the study reflect the influence of European interventions towards encouraging farmers to use more environmentally friendly agri- cultural practices. Under this perspective, the findings contribute to the current debate on green architecture pursued by the future European agricultural policy. Keywords: farm sustainability; Farm Accounting Data Network; cluster analysis; multivariate analysis 1. Introduction In recent years, increased consumer awareness of the negative environmental impact of agro-industrial production has prompted farms in the primary sector to use increas- ingly sustainable production models. Consumers are concerned about the high volume of food waste related to the food industry and its consequences on the environment. The increasing consumer awareness and concern is largely atributed to the advent of green technologies. That is, the emergence of new green technologies provides alternative and sustainable ways of producing food which consumer groups yearn for. This calls for sus- tainable models of production and consumption [1]. From a multifunctional agriculture perspective, farm competitiveness and sustainable practices cannot be disentangled if the goal of a policy is to minimize the negative environmental impact of food production [2]. This is consistent with the specific objectives of the 2014–2020 CAP. The policy provides new development opportunities linked to increasing consumer interest in sustainable products. In 2017, the European Commission presented a communication to the European Parliament [3] containing the new legislative proposals [4] for the reform of the CAP 2021– 2027. The Commission included three general objectives in its strategy, including “seting Citation: Cardillo, C.; Di Fonzo, A.; Liberati, C. The Farm’s Orientation towards Sustainability: An Assessment Using FADN Data in Italy. Land 2023, 12, 301. htps:// doi.org/10.3390/land12020301 Academic Editors: Dongxue Zhao, Daniel Rodriguez, Feng Liu and Tibet Khongnawang Received: 30 November 2022 Revised: 16 January 2023 Accepted: 17 January 2023 Published: 20 January 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con- ditions of the Creative Commons At- tribution (CC BY) license (htps://cre- ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).