Which Italian Family Farms Will Have a Successor?

The succession in family farm is a critical issue: it not only involves the transmission of wealth, but also of specific skills and of specific farm management techniques. Since a large share of farmers in Italy are old, the lack of prospective successors in their farms would imply that a change in the farm management will take place. In some cases this might lead to the abandonment of farms and to degradation of the territory. It is therefore important to explore the conditions under which a farm household can transmit the farm management within the household itself. In our paper we try to assess which are the determinants of the likely farm succession within the family and we test in a developed country the hypothesis put forward by Rosenzweig and Wolpin (1985) for LDCs that farm-specific knowledge creates an incentive for children to take on the farm. To do this, we estimate by probit models the determinants for the presence of prospective successors, taking as an indicator the presence of children working on the farm. Explanatory variables include personal characteristics of the operators, including their work status, and farm, location and labour market characteristics. The results suggest that specific knowledge does favour farm succession within the household, along with other variables already considered in the previous literature; nevertheless, the effects of these variables are in general weak, and more research is needed to identify them.Farm household, succession, farm specific knowledge, probit model, Farm Management, J43, Q12,

Consumers' Short- and Long-Term Response to "Mad Cow": Beef Consumption and Willingness-to-Pay for Organic Beef in Italy

This paper aims at assessing: 1) consumers' habits concerning beef consumption and their responses to the BSE both immediately and at a longer term; 2) consumers' attitudes and willingness to pay for organic beef, an obvious alternative to regular beef in terms of safety. It is based on two random telephone surveys, the first one conducted in 2001 (few months after the BSE crisis) and the second one in 2003. The analysis shows that though the effect of the BSE crisis has weakened along with time distance, it left some permanent signs in consumers' behaviour. The analysis of the effect of the time distance from the BSE crisis on consumers' attitudes towards organic beef leads to the main conclusion that the demand for organic beef reduced, but that in the meantime it became more inelastic.BSE, organic beef, willingness to pay, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q13, Q21,

Consumers' Willingness to Pay a Price for Organic Beef Meat

The goal of this paper is to estimate the maximum price consumers are willing to pay (MPWTP) for organic beef meat. To this purpose, a theoretical and econometric approach is presented, based on the RUM model and on a Contingent Valuation technique. The results show that consumers' MPWTP is quite high, thus suggesting that organic beef meat might gain an appreciable market share. This is also an encouraging signal for prospective producers of organic meat, who might compensate the likely increase in production costs with a substantial premium for the new good.Organic meat, Willingness to pay, Double bounded probit, Consumer/Household Economics,

Willingness-to-pay in terms of price: an application to organic beef during and after the “mad cow” crisis

This paper aims at assessing consumers’ attitudes and willingness to pay for organic beef, an obvious alternative to regular beef in terms of safety, both immediately and at a longer term after the BSE crisis. It is based on two random telephone surveys in an Italian region, the first one conducted in 2001 (few months after the BSE crisis) and the second one in 2003. The analysis is based on an innovative methodology of contingent valuation, keeping into account the possibility for consumers to decide the quantity of their purchase when a price is proposed. The results show that though the effect of the BSE crisis weakened along with time distance, it left some permanent signs in consumers’ behaviour. The main conclusion is that the demand for organic beef reduced, but that in the meantime it became more inelastic.BSE, organic beef, willingness to pay, contingent valuation

Italy from 1939

Over the seven decades considered in the chapter, the Italian wine industry has changed dramatically, from a dispersed production system mainly oriented to self- consumption of supply and the local market with low- value wines, to a modern industry able to satisfy an increasingly demanding domestic supply and very competitive international markets with a wide range of wines. The current situation is the result of a long process driven by many factors, acting inside and outside the sector, and mainly national and EU policies and changing domestic and international demand. The evolution of the sector happened in four different phases, marked by different drivers and characteristics. Each period is described focusing on grape growing, wine making, domestic consumption, exports and policies affecting the industry

Anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activity of ketogenic diet. New perspectives for neuroprotection in alzheimer’s disease

The ketogenic diet, originally developed for the treatment of epilepsy in non-responder children, is spreading to be used in the treatment of many diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. The main activity of the ketogenic diet has been related to improved mitochondrial function and decreased oxidative stress. B-Hydroxybutyrate, the most studied ketone body, has been shown to reduce the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), improving mitochondrial respiration: it stimulates the cellular endogenous antioxidant system with the activation of nuclear factor erythroid-derived 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), it modulates the ratio between the oxidized and reduced forms of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+/NADH) and it increases the efficiency of electron transport chain through the expression of uncoupling proteins. Furthermore, the ketogenic diet performs anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-kB) activation and nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich-containing family, pyrin domain-containing-3 (NLRP3) inflammasome as well as inhibiting histone deacetylases (HDACs), improving memory encoding. The underlying mechanisms and the perspectives for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease are discussed