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This paper investigates the effects of the convergence process of direct payments (DPs) on farm income inequality. The analysis uses the Gini coefficient concept and its decomposition on the FADN I...

Over the last decades, foreign workers have become a significant component of Italian agriculture work-force. Their presence and incidence are highly diversified with respect to farm typologies, type of contract and geographic location. A comprehensive representation of this complex phenomenon is thus the first step to understand the different problems and needs associated to the employment of foreign workforce. This study uses micro data from the 2010 Italian Agricultural Census to first describe what are the structural and geographical features of Italian farms employing foreign workers and then to group farms through a cluster analysis. Results give a detailed representation of the incidence of foreign workers employed, revealing which part of Italian agriculture relies more on foreign workers. The cluster analysis allows the definition of six groups: foreign workers are especially involved in livestock activities, both indoor and grazing and in farms specialized in permanent crops. Among major policy implications, analysing the presence of foreign workers can help targeting policies to agricultural production system needs.

Mediterranean diet is a term used to describe the traditional eating habits of people around the Mediterranean and that refers to a healthy eating model, with significant nutrition and health benefits. However, many studies have emphasised an increasing erosion of the Mediterranean diet heritage, also in Italy. Starting from the assumption that evolution of human nutrition, if it occurs rapidly, can only be conceptualised as a social phenomenon, this study intends to explore the relationship between purchase behaviour for typical Mediterranean diet food and some socioeconomic and geographic characteristics of the Italian households.[br/] Italy's food purchase microdata in 2013 were used to describe three different purchasing behaviours among households and a multinomial logit model was applied to model nominal outcome variables in relationship with socioeconomic variables. Results suggest that families with older and more educated respondents have a higher probability to purchase Mediterranean diet food, while spending more on out-of-home eating or living far away from an urban area, seems to reduce this probability., La diète méditerranéenne est un terme utilisé pour décrire les habitudes alimentaires traditionnelles des populations autour de la Méditerranée et qui désigne un modèle d’alimentation saine, avec des bienfaits significatifs pour la nutrition et la santé. Toutefois, de nombreuses études ont mis en évidence une érosion croissante du patrimoine que constitue le régime alimentaire méditerranéen, même en Italie. En partant de l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'évolution de la nutrition humaine, si elle se produit rapidement, ne peut être conceptualisée que comme un phénomène social, cette étude vise à analyser la relation entre les comportements d'achat pour les produits alimentaires typiques de la diète méditerranéenne et certaines caractéristiques socio-économiques et géographiques des ménages italiens.[br/] Des micro-données sur les achats alimentaires en Italie en 2013 ont donc été utilisées pour décrire trois comportements d'achat différents au niveau des ménages et un modèle logit multinomial a été utilisé pour modéliser les variables des résultats nominaux en relation avec les variables socio-économiques. Les résultats suggèrent que pour les familles où les répondants sont plus âgés et plus instruits, la probabilité d'acheter des aliments typiques de la diète méditerranéenne est plus élevée, alors que dépenser davantage pour les repas hors domicile ou vivre loin d'une zone urbaine semblent réduire cette probabilité.

The paper provides an application of micro-data statistical analysis for agricultural economics studies. We use data from the 2000 and 2010 Censuses to build a short, two-year panel of 823.771 farms and we used the panel to describe specialization in Italian agriculture. We classified Italian farms into four groups according to their adoption of specialized Type of Farming (TOF) in 2000 and 2010 or de-specialized TOF in both surveys, or the change from a specialized to a de-specialized TOF or vice versa. The degree of specialization in Italian agriculture increased over the decade and the result was driven mostly by a relevant shift toward specialization of farms located in the mountain areas of central and southern Italy. We also found an association between the age structure of the family workforce and the choice of adopting a specialized TOF., Italian Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol 71 No 1 (2016): Vol 71, No 1 (Suppl.) (2016)

The research aim to test the information collected through the Italian FADN survey to analyze the characteristics of Italian land market and was referred to accounting year 2009. The value of land is estimated according to the criterion of the most probable market value and is related to an administrative area and a quality culture. Given the similarity of information obtained, the results have been compared with data of the INEA survey on Land Market published on the website Institute. The data recorded by the FADN are therefore suitable for the analysis of the characteristics of the Italian agricultural land market and the good quality of the information collected, regardless of the checks carried out, is also an evidence of the rigor with which FADN data collections are performed., Aestimum, XLI Meetings Proceedings (Rome)

The greening of direct payments has been introduced into the first pillar of the CAP post-2013 with the objective of promoting sustainable agricultural practices more effectively through simple, generalised, non-contractual and annual actions that go beyond cross-compliance. The main objective of this article is to analyse the effects of this new policy instrument on Italian agriculture by evaluating, through the data from the 6th Agricultural Census of ISTAT, the number of farms and the areas poten- tially affected by these new environmental obligations. Even though the analysis is mainly focused on the greening obligations as have been agreed in the final regulation on direct payments, the article also looks at the main differences, in terms of farms and areas covered, between the final version of the greening measures and the environmental requirements as were proposed by the European Commission in 2011. The article shows that, in its final form, the greening has considerably diminished its potential in promoting sustainable practices on a large scale, since it will affect quite a small percentage of holdings concentrated in specific areas. This is particularly evident in Italy, where arable land is very fragmented and where the average size of farm is well below the thresholds established for the greening requirements. By starting from the Italian case, the article provides a critical discussion on the future CAP and on the main difficulties of implementing a coherent agri-environmental strategy through the direct payments of the first pillar.

The recent CAP reform proposes a green component of the first pillar of the CAP that remunerates farmers for the provision of environmental public goods, by conditioning the 30% of direct payments to specific requirements. The paper focuses on two of the greening obligations of the reform proposal: the diversification of crops and the establishment of the ecological focus areas. The paper, through FADN data, aims at quantifying the impact of these measures on the gross margin (GM) of farms specialized in arable crops in Italy. The results show different impacts of the green payments on arable crops in Italy according to the characteristics of farms, their location and their economic and physical size, showing data the greening is an “horizontal measure” that does not take into adequate account the specific conditions where farmers operate and the different costs of providing public goods through agriculture.

In this paper, the case of the Italian fruit-drink industry is presented to discuss the strategic issues of product-innovation in imperfectly competitive markets. In particular, three main topics are addressed: the incentives to the adoption of innovation-based strategies, R&D investments in imperfectly competitive markets and the role of vertical coordination. To address the topics, a brief description of the industry, a game-theory conceptual framework and a strategic analysis of the marketing channels are proposed. The major conclusions can be summarized as follows: (i) product-innovation strategies are the result of an evaluation of the option value of the R&D investments, the risk of failure and competitors' strategies (ii) demand pull only may be insufficient to trigger innovation: an efficient retailing system, costs of failure and production efficiency may influence the firm's strategic approach to innovation.

The greening of direct payments has been introduced into the first pillar of the CAP post-2013 with the objective of promoting sustainable agricultural practices more effectively through simple, generalised, non-contractual and annual actions that go beyond cross-compliance. The main objective of this article is to analyse the effects of this new policy instrument on Italian agriculture by evaluating, through the data from the 6th Agricultural Census of ISTAT, the number of farms and the areas poten- tially affected by these new environmental obligations. Even though the analysis is mainly focused on the greening obligations as have been agreed in the final regulation on direct payments, the article also looks at the main differences, in terms of farms and areas covered, between the final version of the greening measures and the environmental requirements as were proposed by the European Commission in 2011. The article shows that, in its final form, the greening has considerably diminished its potential in promoting sustainable practices on a large scale, since it will affect quite a small percentage of holdings concentrated in specific areas. This is particularly evident in Italy, where arable land is very fragmented and where the average size of farm is well below the thresholds established for the greening requirements. By starting from the Italian case, the article provides a critical discussion on the future CAP and on the main difficulties of implementing a coherent agri-environmental strategy through the direct payments of the first pillar.

Mediterranean diet is a term used to describe the traditional eating habits of people around the Mediterranean and that refers to a healthy eating model, with significant nutrition and health benefits. However, many studies have emphasised an increasing erosion of the Mediterranean diet heritage, also in Italy. Starting from the assumption that evolution of human nutrition, if it occurs rapidly, can only be conceptualised as a social phenomenon, this study intends to explore the relationship between purchase behaviour for typical Mediterranean diet food and some socioeconomic and geographic characteristics of the Italian households. Italy’s food purchase microdata in 2013 were used to describe three different purchasing behaviours among households and a multinomial logit model was applied to model nominal outcome variables in relationship with socioeconomic variables. Results suggest that families with older and more educated respondents have a higher probability to purchase Mediterranean diet food, while spending more on out-of-home eating or living far away from an urban area, seems to reduce this probability

Mediterranean diet is a term used to describe the traditional eating habits of people around the Mediterranean and that refers to a healthy eating model, with significant nutrition and health benefits. However, many studies have emphasised an increasing erosion of the Mediterranean diet heritage, also in Italy. Starting from the assumption that evolution of human nutrition, if it occurs rapidly, can only be conceptualised as a social phenomenon, this study intends to explore the relationship between purchase behaviour for typical Mediterranean diet food and some socioeconomic and geographic characteristics of the Italian households. Italy’s food purchase microdata in 2013 were used to describe three different purchasing behaviours among households and a multinomial logit model was applied to model nominal outcome variables in relationship with socioeconomic variables. Results suggest that families with older and more educated respondents have a higher probability to purchase Mediterranean diet food, while spending more on out-of-home eating or living far away from an urban area, seems to reduce this probability

The assessment of economic and environmental sustainability of agricultural systems represents a critical issue, which has been addressed in this work with a multi-objective programming model to explore the abatement costs (AC) of CO2 for a set of representative contexts of Italian arable land agriculture. The study was based on the FADN-compliant Italian database RICA and estimates the abatement costs of CO2 emissions in a short time horizon, using linear multi-objective programming and compromise programming. RICA data were used to quantify technical parameters of the model, adopting an innovative concept of a cropping scheme to simulate land-use adaptation. The study shows a quite diversified situation regarding income and emission levels per hectare across the Italian region and farm classes. A reduction of CO2 emissions higher than 5 kg/ha at an AC lower than 1 EUR/kg is affordable only in seven regions, among which Abruzzo, Lombardy, and Puglia show the highest potential. Comparing the estimated abatement costs for CO2 emissions with the corresponding European Trade System prices highlights a difference of 1 order of magnitude, proving that emission reductions for Italian arable crops still require research and innovation to lower adaptation costs.