Innovation adoption and farm profitability: What role for research and information sources?

The paper analyses the determinants of farmers\u2019 adoption of innovations and studies the effect of the source of information and the connection with agricultural research on the contribution of innovation to farm performance. The paper uses primary data collected ad hoc in the Province of Bologna (Emilia-Romagna, Italy) and analyses it through an econometric analysis. The results indicate that structural factors and farm specialisation still play a relevant role in innovation adoption. Connection to scientific research triggers significant improvements in terms of value-added and qual-ity of production but does not affect other profitability-related parameters. The results confirm the need for policy to better consider the role of intermediate actors between research and the farmer as well as to better clarify the final performance strategy in order to set the policy instruments right. The paper also highlights the need for fur-ther research about farms\u2019 proactivity in searching for and selecting information dur-ing the process of innovation adoption and competitive advantages in terms of profitability components

Cooperative Management of Ecosystem Services: Coalition Formation, Landscape Structure and Policies

A growing body of literature shows that full-cooperation among farmers to manage productive ecosystem services would yield gains with respect to uncoordinated approaches. The public good feature of these ecosystem services may, however, hinder the emergence of a cooperative solution at the landscape scale. In this paper, we introduce in a coalition formation game a spatially-explicit bioeconomic model of fruit pollination, where pollinaton depends on the distance to the choosen location of natural habitats. We analyse: (i) which coalitions are stable; (ii) what benefits they provide; (iii) how cooperation depends on the initial landscape structure; and (iv) how policy instruments affect cooperation. The theoretical model presents the rationality of cooperation but, due to the detailed heterogeneity and complex spatial interactions among farms, we use a numerical example to determine the stable coalitions. We find that only small coalitions are stable and that the benefits of cooperation decrease when the spatial autocorrelation of fruit tree covers increase. Policy instruments can increase the interest for cooperation but per-hectare payments and minimum participation rules may reduce the habitat area at the margin (by decreasing the stability of coalitions). Price premium for the coalition members increase the habitat area but its budget-effectiveness decreases as the spatial autocorrelation of fruit tree covers increase

Ambiguity, Familiarity and Learning Behavior in the Adoption of ICT for Irrigation Management

Subjective behavior of decision makers (DMs) is paramount when modeling information and communication technology (ICT) adoption choices in irrigated agriculture. Here, efficient ICT aided irrigation plans often involve a certain degree of uncertainty, and differential attitudes toward it can cause uncoordinated actions between actors. Some DMs will implement ICT information, while others will not because they do not trust ICT reliability. This risks undermining the achievement of ICT benefits in terms of water saving at the irrigation district level. By distinguishing between differ ent sources of uncertainty, taking the form of risk and ambiguity, in the present paper, we developed a new decision model to assess the impact that subjective behavior and learning processes have on the efficiency of ICT-aided irrigation plans. A case study was selected to implement the model in simplified settings. The results revealed the potential of ambiguity to limit ICT information implemen tation and to hinder water governance. Implications mainly concern the development of uncertainty management policies to favor DMs becoming familiar with the new ICT with lower ambiguit

Provision of public goods by agriculture and forestry: Economics, policy and the way ahead

The provision of public goods by agriculture and forestry has taken increasing importance in the policy debate. The objective of this editorial is to set the scene for the special issue, to provide a summary of the main messages from the papers therein, highlight the most relevant lessons learnt for policy and generate insights for future research. The results highlight that there is a need to investigate further both the micro-mechanisms of decisionmaking, value creation and coordination among actors, including the micro-level issues in policy design, and to address the topic of public goods, taking a holistic view of how agriculture and forestry systems work. In order to meet these real-world requirements, different research approaches need to be better integrated, promoting crossfertilisation and synergies among different methodological perspectives, able to complement one another in meeting policy challenges

Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Italy: state of the art and selected research issues

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) was implemented rather late in Italy. The actual implementation took place in 2006 with decree 152/2006 but the Directive was not completely effective until the beginning of 2009, when law 13/2009 provided for the implementation of river basin plans by basin authorities. The objective of this paper is to describe the implementation of the WFD in Italy and to discuss selected policy and research issues. The paper begins with an introduction highlighting the specificities of Italy in terms of water management. With regard to implementation, the general administrative setting, as well as the interpretation of WFD categories related to economic evaluations will be illustrated. Two major issues of particularly high relevance in the present debate are then discussed: a) the evaluation of environmental and resource costs; and b) water regulation in agriculture.Department of Agricultural Economics and Engineering, University of Bologna (Italy). Department of Statistics, University of Bologna (Italy)

An evidence-based multidisciplinary approach focused at creating algorithms for targeted therapy of bsis, cutis, and ciais caused by enterobacterales in critically ill adult patients

Prompt implementation of appropriate targeted antibiotic therapy represents a valuable approach in improving clinical and ecological outcome in critically septic patients. This multidisciplinary opinion article focused at developing evidence-based algorithms for targeted antibiotic therapy of bloodstream (BSIs), complicated urinary tract (cUTIs), and complicated intrabdominal infections (cIAIs) caused by Enterobacterales. The aim was to provide a guidance for intensive care physicians either in appropriately placing novel antibiotics or in considering strategies for sparing the broadest-spectrum antibiotics. A multidisciplinary team of experts (one intensive care physician, one infectious disease consultant, one clinical microbiologist and one MD clinical pharmacologist), performed several rounds of assessment to reach agreement in developing six different algorithms according to the susceptibility pattern (one each for multi-susceptible, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing, AmpC beta-lactamase-producing, Klebsiella pneumoniae carba-penemase (KPC)-producing, OXA-48-producing, and Metallo-beta-lactamase (MBL)-produ-cing Enterobacterales). Whenever multiple therapeutic options were feasible, a hierarchical scale was established. Recommendations on antibiotic dosing optimization were also pro-vided. In order to retrieve evidence-based support for the therapeutic choices proposed in the algorithms, a comprehensive literature search was performed by a researcher on PubMed-MEDLINE from inception until March 2021. Quality and strength of evidence was established according to a hierarchical scale of the study design. Only articles published in English were included. It is expected that these algorithms, by allowing prompt revision of antibiotic regimens whenever feasible, appropriate place in therapy of novel beta-lactams, implementation of strategies for sparing the broadest-spectrum antibiotics, and pharmacoki-netic/pharmacodynamic optimization of antibiotic dosing regimens, may be helpful either in improving clinical outcome or in containing the spread of antimicrobial resistance

Le politiche agro- ambientali in Europa, America e Australia: quale potenziale per lo sviluppo di aste di contratti in Europa

Negli ultimi decenni, abbiamo assistito ad una crescente attenzione da parte dei principali paesi Ocse nei confronti delle politiche agro-ambientali (Baylis et al., 2007). L’Unione Europea (UE), l’Australia (Aus) e gli Stati Uniti (US) hanno introdotto all’interno delle rispettive politiche agricole, attraverso l’utilizzo di crescenti risorse finanziarie, misure capaci di conciliare le esigenze produttive e di mercato con la conservazione dell’ambiente e lo sviluppo sostenibile. Un’attenta lettura di questo cambiamento, attraverso i principali programmi1 attuati in UE, Aus e US, evidenzia obiettivi generali e tratti comuni nei percorsi seguiti, ma anche numerose differenze. In questo paesaggio normativo diversi possono essere i fattori che hanno influenzato la natura degli obiettivi e delle priorità dei programmi attuati, come: i diversi valori ambientali, la natura dei diritti di proprietà legati all’utilizzo delle risorse naturali, e il livello di consapevolezza della società civile nei confronti delle problematiche stesse. Di conseguenza diverso è stato anche il mix delle politiche adottate e diversi sono stati gli strumenti messi in campo per affrontare le principali problematiche ambientali. Un aspetto comune, di cruciale importanza per tutti i programmi analizzati, riguarda l’efficienza e l’efficacia delle misure e dei pagamenti agro-ambientali. A livello Europeo, nonostante il dibattito in letteratura sulla possibilità di migliorare il rapporto costo-efficacia degli schemi agro-ambientali mediante pagamenti basati su aste di contratti, non ci sono state ancora sperimentazioni ne applicazioni concrete. In Australia e negli Stati Uniti invece, già da diversi anni, tali strumenti vengono impiegati con successo nei principali programmi agro-ambientali. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è di trarre insegnamento dalle soluzioni alternative nel disegno dei pagamenti adottate nei principali programmi agro-ambientali in Australia e negli Stati Uniti e valutare la possibilità per i programmi UE di introdurre in via sperimentale le aste di contratti al fine di ridurre le rendite informative degli agricoltori e aumentare l’efficienza delle misure. Secondo Glebe (2008) e Vojtech (2010), il limite di bilancio imposto alla spesa per le politiche agro-ambientali costituisce una sfida per la ricerca di soluzioni con un buon rapporto costi efficacia nell’affrontare le questioni agro-ambientali

Copy number variations in candidate genomic regions confirm genetic heterogeneity and parental bias in Hirschsprung disease

Background: Hirschsprung Disease (HSCR) is a congenital defect of the intestinal innervations characterized by complex inheritance. Many susceptibility genes including RET, the major HSCR gene, and several linked regions and associated loci have been shown to contribute to disease pathogenesis. Nonetheless, a proportion of patients still remains unexplained. Copy Number Variations (CNVs) have already been involved in HSCR, and for this reason we performed Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH), using a custom array with high density probes. Results: A total of 20 HSCR candidate regions/genes was tested in 55 sporadic patients and four patients with already known chromosomal aberrations. Among 83 calls, 12 variants were experimentally validated, three of which involving the HSCR crucial genes SEMA3A/3D, NRG1, and PHOX2B. Conversely RET involvement in HSCR does not seem to rely on the presence of CNVs while, interestingly, several gains and losses did co-occur with another RET defect, thus confirming that more than one predisposing event is necessary for HSCR to develop. New loci were also shown to be involved, such as ALDH1A2, already found to play a major role in the enteric nervous system. Finally, all the inherited CNVs were of maternal origin. Conclusions: Our results confirm a wide genetic heterogeneity in HSCR occurrence and support a role of candidate genes in expression regulation and cell signaling, thus contributing to depict further the molecular complexity of the genomic regions involved in the Enteric Nervous System development. The observed maternal transmission bias for HSCR associated CNVs supports the hypothesis that in females these variants might be more tolerated, requiring additional alterations to develop HSCR disease