Italian Review of Agricultural Economics

Editorial note

2021-11-17T18:58:31+00:00

Optimal Storage in Brazilian Corn Market: application of a rational Dynamic Model

2021-11-17T18:58:35+00:00

This paper aims to analyze the decision regarding corn storage (for the first and second crops) in the current context of the Brazilian market through an economic model of dynamic storage. We consider storage as a competitive economic activity and that agents can maximize profit through rational expectations. Our results provide a comprehensive analysis of how growth in the Brazilian second crop and high level of exports has impacted corn storage dynamics. The export rule suggests increasing exports when availability exceeds 37.3 million tons in the first crop and 56.3 million tons in availability in the second crop. The storage rule suggests that storage formation occurs increasingly in the first crop when supply exceeds 38.1 million tons and 60.9 million tons in the second crop.

Agricultural Growth and Investments in India: Assessment of Recent Trends, Breaks and Linkages

2021-11-17T18:58:29+00:00

This paper reviews the recent trends in agricultural investments (both public and private) and tries to find structural breaks in the trends over the period of 1960-2017. Comparing the growth performance of investments and farm output (GDPAg and production) in various sub-periods based on breakpoints in both investment series the study finds that the recent agricultural stagnation spawns from a low capital formation in Indian agriculture, especially low public investment. This has been further strengthened by the regression results where both public and private investments along with fertilizer consumption, HYV seeds, terms of trade, and weather pattern significantly affect the agricultural output. Therefore, the policy implication of the study calls for an immediate arrest of the declining trend of public investment in order to stimulate more private investment. This may break the shackles of growth stagnation in Indian agriculture.

Bottled Water Industry: a quantitative study approach

2021-11-17T18:58:26+00:00

This paper is a survey of the Italian bottled water industry that with quantitative approach relates the consumes or operative volumes of mineral water market based on the middle trend of temperatures, the consumed income per-capita and the trend of the population. We present the weight-OLS models for four macro-markets – north western, north eastern, centre, southern – on the data of the Bevitalia survey and the ISTAT-Time Series dataset from 1980 to 2020. The results confirm that the operative volumes depend positively and significantly on itself lagged by one order and the other explicative variables up cited. However, the study not consider other important correlated industries as soft drinks or flavoured waters. In addition, the analysis could be more indepth at the level of regions, provinces and municipalities, or for case-study whit a qualitative approach. In conclusion, the study captures the market dynamics of the industry at long-term, and it brings to the attention of managers, researchers and business economists an industry much important for socio-economic implications and environmental impacts that can cause the consumption of bottled water that policy makers cannot afford to ignore.

The sustainability of social farming: a study through the Social Return on Investment methodology (SROI)

2021-11-17T18:58:24+00:00

The aim of this paper is to study the sustainability of Social farming (SF), with attention to practices addressed people suffering from addictions. In this study the Social Return on Investment (SROI) has been used as assessment methodology; has been used, which is increasingly used to approach the quantification of social, environmental and economic benefits on different types of investment. The SF activity of the Agricoltura Capodarco Cooperative was studied in order to evaluate the outcome in monetary terms taking into account all the beneficiaries involved. The application of SROI allowed to estimate a return of investment, coming mainly from the social component, ranging from 1,89 to 4,10 times, according to the degree of conservativeness of the estimates. The study extends both the analysis of SF to people categories only marginally addressed before and the application fields of SROI as assessment methodology.

An indicator of well-being for Italian agriculture

2021-11-17T18:58:21+00:00

The paper presents a composite indicator of well-being for Italian agriculture.Well-being is defined as the health condition of the agricultural sector from the point of view of farmers. The indicator is based on four dimensions: social, environmental, institutional and economic, allowing comparability of well-being at regional level. The novelty of the approach consists in presenting a well-being indicator at sectorial level, by applying a new method of aggregation, the Adjusted Mazziotta-Pareto index (2016). It is a non-compensatory approach for summarizing a set of individual indicators which accounts for unbalanced distribution among the indicators. Results show that central and northern regions are in the top ten for the regional agricultural well-being in years 2013 and 2016.

Aspetti comportamentali della partecipazione ai programmi di assicurazione agricola agevolata nell’Italia meridionale

2021-11-17T18:58:33+00:00

The agricultural yield is affected by several risks, main of them are not controllable by humans. For this reason, the CAP has established several interventions to help guaranteeing a stable and appropriate income to farmers. One of the main policy interventions established in the current CAP that will be in place also in the future CAP, is the subsidized crop insurance. This tool did not spread in the Central and Southern Italy as much as in the Northern Italy. Several aspects should be considered to explain such a heterogenous uptake: among them, the behavioral aspects are likely to play a role. We investigate these aspects and conclude on variables that tend to affect farmers’ choices on crop insurance, with specific reference to the behavioral aspects such as risk and ambiguity attitudes and temporal preferences.