For a regional typology of Italian agriculture: the contribution of social sciences . – The paper shows how hardly the agricultural statistics grasp the essence of social phenomena that take place into contemporary farming, for two main reasons. The first is the increasing complexity of such farming, due to the overwhelming power of the agro-industry. The second is the difficulty of organizing a reading of these newly appeared socio-economical phenomena, since the governmental statistics are mostly oriented by objectives of agricultural policy, in which the operational needs prevail over those of scientific knowledge. Finally, it is argued that a more systematic contact with the experience of other social sciences (in particular the historical studies are cited) could help the creation of statistical tools capable of a better understanding, or at least could improve the awareness about the limits of the existing tools.