Italian Review of Agricultural Economics

Risk, uncertainty, crises management and public intervention in agriculture

2022-11-21T10:28:21+00:00

Climate variability and extremes, socio-economic conditions, crisis and market shocks are among the main factors determining risk in the agricultural sector. Drought, heat stress, flood, market volatility among the others, have caused heavy losses in the recent past and both the occurrence and intensity of these extremes are expected to increase in the coming decades. Emerging and re-emerging diseases represent a serious concern for the future of agriculture. Here, we provide a synthetic overview of the theoretical framework that could lead public intervention in this specific field and discuss measures that have been taken to reduce economic losses for Italian farmers. We also tried to highlight the difference between risk and uncertainty that in a new global scenario will substantially characterize the reliability of empirical analyses in this complex research field.

Weather Risk Management in Agriculture Using Weather Derivatives

2022-11-21T10:28:38+00:00

The purpose of this paper is to examine weather risk management by application of weather derivatives in agriculture and evaluate the hedging efficiency. Agriculture is a sector highly sensitive to meteorological elements that affect the yield of many crops. The underlying weather indices depending on temperature, rainfall and wind speed are analysed. Pricing follows the index modelling method using the Burn analysis valuation for fair premium calculation. The proposal of hedging strategies against excess rainfall in the crop cycle using weather options for Kosice region in the east of Slovakia is investigated and discussed. Results show that the weather derivatives application in weather risk management reduced the yield volatility in agriculture.

The economic value of ecosystem services of irrigation: a choice experiment for the monetary evaluation of irrigation canals and fontanili in Lombardy

2022-11-21T10:28:41+00:00

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) has introduced economic principles for water resource management, including the environmental cost recovery on the basis of the polluter pays principle (PPP). Agriculture, as a potential driver of pressures on water bodies, can produce environmental costs. However, the use of water in agriculture can produce ecosystem services (ES), especially through the aquatic systems of the traditional irrigation agro-ecosystem. This work presents a case study of monetary estimation of some ES of aquatic ecosystems linked to irrigation, i.e. irrigation canals and fontanili in Lombardy (Italy). Through the choice experiment method, we obtained positive values of willingness to pay for the highest levels of ES analysed. This has an implication in the context of the economic analysis of water uses and the decision-making process within the interventions planning of irrigation efficiency improvement.

Scientific information and cognitive bias in the case of New Breeding Techniques: exploring Millennials behaviour in Italy

2022-11-21T10:28:23+00:00

The paper explores consumers’ acceptance of New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) in the agri-food sector. Our main research question concerns the role of information in shaping consumers’ attitude towards genetically modified food and new breeding techniques in agricultural production. To this extent, we use a Multinomial Logit Model to analyse changes or confirmations of prior opinions on food safety concerns and environmental risks associated with modern biotechnologies once scientific information has been provided. Our findings confirm the Bayesian hypothesis according to which people combine their prior belief with new information to converge scientific information in the case of food safety. We also found a higher probability of confirmation bias, with people less willing to change their prior beliefs, when environmental risks are concerned.

Households’ Rice Demand Response to Changes in Price, Income and Coping Strategies during Food Inflation in Nigeria: Evidence from Oyo State

2022-11-21T10:28:25+00:00

Food price is a main driver of inflation that erodes the purchasing power of households. The study examined demand response to changes in price of rice during food price inflation in Nigeria using sampled households from Oyo State. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 174 households for the study. Primary data were obtained on types of rice, frequency and quantity bought, reasons for demand, price variations and coping strategies. Descriptive statistics and Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) that take into account the non-linear impact of income changes was used for data analysis. Over 70% of households’ demand was for imported long grain rice, local brown and wet grain rice and local brown and dry grain rice. The expenditure elasticities of both local short brown wet rice (LSBWR) and imported short grain rice (ISGR) was positive and <1 indicating that they were normal and necessary food items. Strategies mainly used to cope with rice price and households’ income changes include: substitution of rice with other food types, preparation of rice with other foods to reduce quantity of rice in meals and reduction of rice demand. Even though price intervention may not lead to a significant effect on rice demand, an improvement in technology will lead to reduction in the cost of rice production and eventually reduce the price of local rice, enhance high demand and encourage producers to increase production.

Historical crop yields and climate variability: analysis of Italian cereal data

2022-12-07T10:16:15+00:00

Climate change is impacting on the agricultural sector in several ways, and the effects on yields are generally among the most observable ones. Open fields crops, such as cereals, are very vulnerable to climate change. We study the historical data on yields of main cereals, namely barley, maize, oats, rice, rye, wheat, to conclude on the long run impacts of temperature and precipitation, over the period 1920-2015. Yields are found to be inversely correlated with temperatures and positively with precipitation, in both cases the relationships are non-linear, as expected.

Kunneke R., Ménard C., Groenewegen J. (2021). Network infrastructures: Technology meets institutions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK)

2022-11-21T10:28:19+00:00