Le specificità del sistema agro-alimentare nella ricostruzione post-sisma

Anche il cosiddetto ‘cratere agricolo’ ha pagato un prezzo molto elevato a seguito degli eventi sismici del maggio 2012 in Emilia. Tutte le principali produzioni agro-industriali del territorio hanno subito gravi danni: si pensi ai caseifici e magazzini di stagionatura per la produzione di Parmigiano Reggiano, alle cantine e acetaie, alle celle frigorifere per la conservazione dei prodotti ortofrutticoli. Il presente lavoro analizza i principali elementi di specificità che, rispetto ad una forte vulnerabilità settoriale, hanno caratterizzato la ricostruzione del patrimonio agricolo e agro-industriale del cratere. Grande attenzione è data, ad esempio, alla risposta istituzionale per la ricostruzione. Come il settore industriale, infatti, anche il settore agro-alimentare ha beneficiato dei contributi per la ricostruzione attraverso la piattaforma SFINGE. Tuttavia, esso ha altresì beneficiato delle risorse stanziate attraverso il FEASR (Fondo Europeo Agricolo per lo Sviluppo Rurale): l’attivazione di specifiche misure ha permesso di sostenere l’intero territorio del cratere del sisma. Un ulteriore elemento di specificità evidenziato è rappresentato dal tema dell’associazionismo (attivazione di accordi di filiera, interventi di solidarietà e mutualistici) e dal ruolo ricoperto dai Consorzi di Tutela delle produzioni tipiche. Il lavoro dunque evidenzia come, nonostante le criticità riscontrate, il settore agro-alimentare abbia saputo cogliere alcune opportunità dall’evento sismico, soprattutto in termini di capacità innovativa. Abstract: The 2012 earthquake in Emilia-Romagna (Italy) affected a broad area that is characterized by the presence of important industrial and agricultural districts. Indeed, dairies producing Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, firms producing balsamic vinegar of Modena (acetaie) as well as wineries have been particularly damaged. This work focuses on those specific features of agricultural activities that have affected the reconstruction process as well. According to those specificities, the paper points out regulatory interventions that were approved, aiming to guarantee appropriate financial support to the agri-industrial activities damaged by the earthquake. Specific focus is devoted to the role played by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). Eventually, the role played by the cooperative system is stressed as well. According to this analysis, agri-food sector has been proven quite innovative, despite many limits affecting it

Socio-economic effects of an earthquake: does sub-regional counterfactual sampling matter in estimates? An empirical test on the 2012 Emilia-Romagna earthquake

Estimates of macroeconomic effects of natural disaster have a long tradition in economic literature (Albala-Bertrand, 1993a; 1993b; Tol and Leek, 1999; Chang and Okuyama, 2004; Benson and Clay, 2004; Str\uf6mberg, 2007; UNISDR, 2009; Cuaresma, 2009; Cavallo and Noy, 2009; Cavallo et al., 2010; The United Nations and The World Bank, 2010). After the seminal contribution of Abadie et al. (2010) in identifying synthetic control groups, with DuPont and Noy (2015) a new strand has been opened in estimating long term effects of natural disaster at a sub-regional scale, at which the Japan case provides plenty of significant economic variables. Although the same methodology has been applied in estimating the impact of earthquakes in Italy (Barone et al. 2013; Barone and Mocetti, 2014), the analysis has been limited to the regional scale. In our paper, due to a lack in long-term time series data at municipality level, this paper cannot adopt the methodology suggested by Abadie et al. (2010). Nevertheless, it provides a test bed for assessing the relevance of a sub-regional counterfactual evaluation of a natural disaster\u2019s impact. By taking the 2012 Emilia-Romagna earthquake as a case study, we propose a comprehensive framework to answer some critical questions arising in such analysis. Firstly, we address the problem of identifying the proper boundaries of the area affected by an earthquake. Secondly, through a cluster analysis we show the importance of intra area differences in terms of their socio-economic features. Thirdly, counterfactual analysis is assessed by adopting a pre- and post-earthquake difference-in-difference comparison of average data in clusters within and outside the affected area. Moreover, three frames to apply propensity score matching at municipality level are also adopted, by taking the control group of municipalities (outside the affected area): (a) within the same cluster, (b) within the same region, (c) in the whole country. The four variables considered in the counterfactual analysis are: total population; foreigner population; total employment in manufacturing local units; employment in small and medium-sized manufacturing local units (0 to 49 employees). All the counterfactual tests largely show a similar result: socio-economic effects are heterogeneous across the affected area, where some clusters of municipalities perform better, in terms of increase of population and employment after the earthquake, against some others. This result sharply contrasts with the average results we observe by comparing the whole affected area with the non-affected one or with the entire region

Analisi cluster delle caratteristiche socio-economiche dei comuni dell'Emilia-Romagna: un confronto tra comuni dentro e fuori dal cratere del sisma

The socio-economic features of the area hit by the 2012 earthquake in Emilia-Romagna (Italy) represents a first step in building a more comprehensive framework, which could help in better interpreting earthquake effects in both short and medium period. Actually, this analysis falls under that broader field of research, which is aimed at providing counterfactual evaluations of both natural disasters’ impacts and the adoption of public policies to support reconstruction. This paper moves from the idea that those municipalities, which lie close to the epicentre of 2012 Emilia-Romagna earthquake, are not particularly homogenous in terms of socio-economic features. Analysing those major differences is a key element in order to assess the way human activities and other specific economic features at municipality level may either increase or limit the effects of an earthquake. Firstly, this paper tackles the problem of properly identifying the boundaries of the area directly hit by the 2012 earthquake. Indeed, different acts have provided different definitions of those boundaries. Eventually, a cluster analysis has been performed covering all municipalities in Emilia-Romagna, according to a set of demographic and economic variables, available at municipality level. This analysis highlights the existence of different typologies of municipalities, even in the area hit by the earthquake. In particular, these results are of particular interest, allowing further assessments on the effects of the earthquake. Actually, according to cluster analysis results, specific counterfactual examples (not hit by the earthquake) will be identified

Innovation and development after the earthquake in Emilia

The 2012 earthquake in Emilia-Romagna (Italy) has shaken up the collective understanding on the socioeconomic importance of a vast territory that generates almost 2% of Italian GDP. The area affected by the earthquake is characterized by the presence of important industrial and agricultural districts, and by good practices of local governance that are internationally renowned. Private and public buildings, factories, offices and retail shops, historical and cultural heritage sites have been severely damaged. Not only, but it set in motion transformations in the socio-economic system that might have unexpected consequences and that undermine the quick recovery of the local system: different agents, at different levels, taking individual and collective decisions, generate a cascade of changes that interact with its evolution path. Indeed, earthquakes pose challenges, but provide unprecedented opportunities: strategic decisions by economic and political agents, newly available financial resources, coordination or lack of coordination among main stakeholders, and so on. The following paper provides an overview of the first results of Energie Sisma Emilia research project: it aims at collecting and disseminating relevant knowledge and evidence in order to design policies. In particular, it identifies the agents propelling innovation processes, and analyses their strategies in ever-changing environment. The paper starts with a socio-economic analysis of the area struck by the earthquake, followed by the results of three of the focus groups conducted. Eventually, it illustrates a specific innovation: the introduction and implementation of the digital infrastructure “Mude”

Earthquake hazard in Italy Cluster analysis of socio-economic data to inform place-based policy measures

The Italian Government launched the Piano Casa Italia immediately after the series of massive earthquakes that struck Central Italy in 2016, following the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila and the one in 2012 in Emilia-Romagna. The cumulative impact of human losses and economic and social uncertainty produced by the last disaster in 2016 has spurred political decision-makers to advocate an ambitious long-term intervention, aimed at restructuring Italian public buildings and houses over the next decades. Italy has experienced only one other era of similar schemes with the controversial interventions lasting for more than thirty years of the Cassa del Mezzogiorno, which started in the 1950s to cope with the country's dual economic condition. Since then, no other long-term ambitious plan has been attempted in Italy and a similar planning perspective is nowadays far from the experience of most public managers, policy makers and even scholars of economics and development. The ongoing challenges that the Piano Casa Italia has to face are multifaceted: political, economic and social. Challenges pertaining to the agents asked to design the scheme, to implement it and to accept it. The overall perspective of structural change will mark its implementation. This paper is a first contribution within a broader framework to outline the conditions characterizing those challenges and the paths of change that will be initiated by realizing the Plan. The paper suggests taking an analytical perspective to support informed policy measures, in four complementary domains: emergency (National Civil Protection), recovery (Struttura Commissariale), risk reduction (Piano Casa Italia), socio-economic development (National Strategy for Inner Areas). The present contribution starts with a preliminary step, in line with the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction (UNISDR 2015): a detailed analysis of the socio-economic, demographic and geographic conditions across Italian territorial areas, at a municipality level. This work explicitly aims to single out these features, by focusing both on seismic zones and on regions. The paper also returns the results of a cluster analysis performed at municipality level across Italy and concludes discussing some implications for place-based policy interventions

Explaining anti-immigrant sentiment through spatial analysis: a study of the 2019 European elections in Italy

Does the settling of foreigners cause a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment due to resource competition? Or does the interaction allow for more respectful relations? And what if one also considers settlement in neighbouring municipalities? Applying an instrumental variable approach to variables collected at the municipality level and also including neighbouring areas, this paper aims to shed light on these questions by considering the vote for the Lega party across Italian municipalities in the 2019 European parliamentary election as a proxy for anti-immigration sentiment. Our results point out a negative effect of direct interactions with foreigners on the Lega vote, while the proximity of immigrants in neighbouring municipalities could have the opposite effect

Enhancing the resilience of social infrastructures: issues on agents, artefacts and processes. Proceedings of the 2016 Modena Workshop

In the social sciences domain, the term 'resilience' is usually associated to a wide set of changes that affect people and their communities. In particular, both the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 and the Sendai Framework explicitly focus on the way in which communities face both natural and man-made hazards. To this respect, both material and non-material infrastructures play a critical role, hence deserving a specific focus when assessing local communities' level of resilience. Among them, this paper focuses on: health services, social services, government (according to a multi-level perspective, from the national to the local level), communication infrastructure (i.e. specific tools to interconnect all aforementioned networks). Firstly, this paper discusses some of the most important issues and theoretical frameworks that should be addressed in the analysis of the processes of enhancing the resilience of social infrastructures. Secondly, the discussion that took place in a workshop promoted in May 2016 as the outcome of a one-year dialogue across a group of EU researchers is returned. The debate moves from some theoretical perspectives on resilience and it eventually returns some case studies and real experiences, such as the actions of local governments and the role of risk communication

Poverty and Social Exclusion in the European Union: South-Eastern Territorial Patterns

Despite the ambitious goals of promoting inclusive growth in the Europe 2020 strategy, the number of people at risk of poverty in European Union is still growing. The paper moves from the hypothesis that poverty may show distinctive social patterns, which couple with a given spatial dimension and therefore can be defined as a spatially heterogeneous phenomenon at both national and sub-national level. Using the available data from Eurostat on income and living conditions (EUSILC) at NUTS2 level, the paper highlights the different territorial patterns in shaping the risk of exclusion across the EU regions. Focusing on the regions of the Southern and Eastern peripheral EU Member States (MSs), the paper outlines the differences emerging from the results achieved by the EU MSs in applying the Europe 2020 Strategy. Moreover, it deepens the analysis of the poverty drivers at the regional level. The paper shows that the peripheral countries of EU are more vulnerable to poverty but different patterns emerge when comparing Mediterranean and Eastern countries, especially with regard to the material deprivation and the drivers influencing poverty and risk of exclusion

The home of life: I am a living soil.

Educating children and young people is a duty of science to promote the sustainability of the soil resource as a common good to be preserved. Constructing the knowledge of this audience focused on soil conservation offers society opportunities to learn how to care for our natural resources through a respectful balance with nature, fostering a culture of protection for our most precious asset, the origin of life. Within these principles, we understand that education plays a fundamental role in achieving a balanced planet for the living beings that inhabit it. In a playful and enjoyable manner, this special audience is invited to understand that within the soil live very small animals that play a vital role in ensuring we have clean water and food because they help us take care of this resource. Furthermore, we are responsible for caring for the soil along with these animals, as co-responsible for maintaining the different scales of life

R&I smart specialisation strategies: classification of EU regions’ priorities. Results from automatic text analysis

Building on automatic text analysis, this paper proposes an original categorization of Research and Innovation Smart Specialisation Strategy (RIS3) priorities and provides a common language (with detailed dictionaries) to classify priorities and then to associate EU regions to multiclass categories of priorities. This result is a powerful tool to interpret the current state of diversification across regions, with its potential of complementarities and synergies that might support territorial integrated development paths. It would also support regions in their future strategic programmes on RIS3. A case study on the Alpine macro-region shows innovation development paths to outline macroregion strategic planning