The international economic crisis that, starting from the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment bank declared on September 15, 2008, has transversally hit all the sectors of the world economy; it has had and continues having signifi cant repercussions on the agricultural sector with different effects between developed and non-developed regions. The European Union is also entering a new period of Common Agricultural Policy reform, and this crisis well illustrates how agriculture is integrated in the economic circuits and worldwide. The banks, particularly, are playing an important role in credit for farms, above all in the European regions that are economically stronger. In order to observe if and how the present economical crisis is affecting agriculture and which diffi culties the operators are experiencing in starting initiatives able to deal with the present productive competition, it is necessary to pay attention to the access of loans from private investors, through fi nancial bank loans to agricultural holdings, instead of resorting to European funds or public support to agriculture. This paper is based on the Database Statistics of the Bank of Italy, in order to analyse the trend of lending to the agricultural enterprise in Italy and in Apulia from 2010 to 2013 (the last offi cial data actually available), to examine and provide evaluation of guidelines in place, spatial variations, typology and quality of loan, and to help offer any guidance on further investigations. 

Keywords: Geography of fi nance, Bank loans in agriculture, Italia, Apulia.