Farm succession at a crossroads: The interaction among farm characteristics, labour market conditions, and gender and birth order effects

Farm succession is a relevant issue, as it is related to rural and youth migration, sustainability and the ageing of the agricultural sector. Understanding the factors behind the willingness of potential successors to take over the family business is crucial for farm continuity. We examine the factors affecting children's likelihood of carrying on the family business in a sample of 216 potential heirs of Italian horticultural farms. Using local labour market conditions (income gap and employment rate) and surrounding context variables (population density), we plug the farm labour migration/occupational choice theory into farm succession analysis. This approach allows us to treat child succession as the opposite of the choice to migrate out of the farm sector. While farm labour migration theory predicts linear negative effects of labour market/contextual variables on farm transfer, we find that the income gap, employment rates and population density exert both negative and positive effects on child succession, according to their intensity. The pro-succession effects we find suggest that, despite potential threats, the proximity to wealthy areas may represent an opportunity for farm continuity and thriving. We also examine explicitly the effect of child characteristics (gender and birth order), finding that male and first-born potential successors are more likely to take over the family farm, in accordance with results from previous firm succession studies. This finding suggests a persistence of traditional normative beliefs in the agricultural sector

Farmland Use Transitions After the CAP Greening: a Preliminary Analysis Using Markov Chains Approach

This paper represents a preliminary attempt to evaluate ex-post impact of the CAP greening payment on farmland use changes, testing by a Markov Chain approach whether farmland use transitions dynamics changed after the introduction of this new policy instrument. Unlike previous contributions, relying on ex-ante simulations, this analysis is based on the actual behaviour of farmers over the period immediately after the last CAP reform. Such ex-post assessment was based on real georeferenced data on farmland allocation, collected in the Lombardy Region, in Northern Italy, over the period 2011-2016. As the current CAP has recently entered in force (in 2015), the present analysis covers the \ufb01rst two years of implementation of the new rules along with the previous four years. Results are in line with previous ex-ante simulations in the same region, detecting a deep discontinuity for those farmland uses characterised by monoculture before the introduction of the greening. They show a signi\ufb01cant discontinuity of farmland use transitions in the reference area after the introduction of greening rules, pointing to a decrease in maize monoculture, in favour of other cereals and legume crops like soybean and alfalfa. Unlike some critical opinions that see current greening rules as a \u201clow pro\ufb01le\u201d compromise, the present analysis points to a strong e\ufb00ect of such rules on regions with high-intensity agriculture

Does the future of a farm depend on its neighbourhood? Evidence on intra-family succession among fruit and vegetable farms in Italy

The transfer of farm activity over time occurs through different pathways, among which the more frequent is intra-family farm succession. Thus, better information on farm succession determinants is crucial for understanding farm succession and informing appropriate sectoral policies. To date, substantial research has focused on the effect of farm, farmer and potential heir features on farm succession, while the role played by socio-economic conditions around a farm has been relatively less examined. Building on previous contributions, the present paper considers farm succession as the opposite of labour migration out of the agricultural sector. Thus, the effect of the labour market and surrounding conditions (LMSC) around a farm on its succession probability is explored. The aim of this paper is therefore to explore whether and to what extent the inclusion of LMSC variables may contribute to a better understanding of farm succession. Using data from a sample of 266 fruit and vegetable farms (gathered for informative purposes by a producers\u2019 organization consortium), empirical evidence that LMSC variables play an important role in explaining the succession probability in these types of farms is provided. Specifically, the results show that (i) including LMSC variables in a farm succession analysis increases the explanatory power and robustness of the model estimates; (ii) LMSC variables have a non-linear effect on succession; and (iii) some explanatory variables (farmer education and farm age, specialization and dimension) are significant across various specifications, while other variables (farmer age, territorial location and distance of a farm from its producer organization) change their sign and/or significance when LMSC variables are included in the model. As a consequence, our findings suggest that LMSC variables should be included in farm succession and labour market analysis to provide a better estimate of farm succession probability

On the complexity of strongly connected components in directed hypergraphs

We study the complexity of some algorithmic problems on directed hypergraphs and their strongly connected components (SCCs). The main contribution is an almost linear time algorithm computing the terminal strongly connected components (i.e. SCCs which do not reach any components but themselves). "Almost linear" here means that the complexity of the algorithm is linear in the size of the hypergraph up to a factor alpha(n), where alpha is the inverse of Ackermann function, and n is the number of vertices. Our motivation to study this problem arises from a recent application of directed hypergraphs to computational tropical geometry. We also discuss the problem of computing all SCCs. We establish a superlinear lower bound on the size of the transitive reduction of the reachability relation in directed hypergraphs, showing that it is combinatorially more complex than in directed graphs. Besides, we prove a linear time reduction from the well-studied problem of finding all minimal sets among a given family to the problem of computing the SCCs. Only subquadratic time algorithms are known for the former problem. These results strongly suggest that the problem of computing the SCCs is harder in directed hypergraphs than in directed graphs.Comment: v1: 32 pages, 7 figures; v2: revised version, 34 pages, 7 figure

Recent Contributions of Agricultural Economics Research in the Field of Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is more often considered by media, public opinion, and politicians to be the main goal our society should attempt to pursue in the coming years. To this aim, academic researchers have made sustainability one of the main objects of their studies. This work focuses on environmental sustainability and presents a brief overview of how it is taken into consideration in the agricultural economics field by considering this topic from different perspectives and thus highlighting how this field is gradually broadening its scope to include sustainable development objectives. Our analysis shows that the path towards sustainable development is strongly correlated to the protection of the environment. Therefore, agricultural policies aimed at protecting and preserving the environment, and, more in general, innovation along the agri-food chain, together with consumer attention towards environmental issues, can play an important role in achieving this objectiv

A Propositional CONEstrip Algorithm

We present a variant of the CONEstrip algorithm for checking whether the origin lies in a finitely generated convex cone that can be open, closed, or neither. This variant is designed to deal efficiently with problems where the rays defining the cone are specified as linear combinations of propositional sentences. The variant differs from the original algorithm in that we apply row generation techniques. The generator problem is WPMaxSAT, an optimization variant of SAT; both can be solved with specialized solvers or integer linear programming techniques. We additionally show how optimization problems over the cone can be solved by using our propositional CONEstrip algorithm as a preprocessor. The algorithm is designed to support consistency and inference computations within the theory of sets of desirable gambles. We also make a link to similar computations in probabilistic logic, conditional probability assessments, and imprecise probability theory

Effects of countdown displays in public transport route choice under severe overcrowding

The paper presents a route choice model for dynamic assignment in congested, i.e. overcrowded, transit networks where it is assumed that passengers are supported with real-time information on carrier arrivals at stops. If the stop layout is such that passenger congestion results in First-In-First-Out (FIFO) queues, a new formulation is devised for calculating waiting times, total travel times and route splits. Numerical results for a simple example network show the effect of information on route choice when heavy congestion is observed. While the provision of information does not lead to a remarkable decrease in total travel time, with the exception of some particular instances, it changes the travel behaviour of passengers that seem to be more averse to queuing at later stages of their journey and, thus, prefer to interchange at less congested stations

No evidence of association between prothrombotic gene polymorphisms and the development of acute myocardial infarction at a young age

Background : we investigated the association between 9 polymorphisms of genes encoding hemostasis factors and myocardial infarction in a large sample of young patients chosen because they have less coronary atherosclerosis than older patients, and thus their disease is more likely to be related to a genetic predisposition to a prothrombotic state Methods and Results : this nationwide case-control study involved 1210 patients who had survived a first myocardial infarction at an age of 45 years who underwent coronary arteriography in 125 coronary care units and 1210 healthy subjects matched for age, sex, and geographical origin. None of the 9 polymorphisms of genes encoding proteins involved in coagulation (G-455A -fibrinogen: OR, 1.0; CI, 0.8 to 1.2; G1691A factor V: OR, 1.1; CI, 0.6 to 2.1; G20210A factor II: OR, 1.0; CI, 0.5 to 1.9; and G10976A factor VII: OR, 1.0; CI, 0.8 to 1.3), platelet function (C807T glycoprotein Ia: OR, 1.1; CI, 0.9 to 1.3; and C1565T glycoprotein IIIa: OR, 0.9; CI, 0.8 to 1.2), fibrinolysis (G185T factor XIII: OR, 1.2; CI, 0.9 to 1.6; and 4G/5G plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1: OR, 0.9; CI, 0.7 to 1.2), or homocysteine metabolism (C677T methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase: OR, 0.9; CI, 0.8 to 1.1) were associated with an increased or decreased risk of myocardial infarction Conclusions : this study provides no evidence supporting an association between 9 polymorphisms of genes encoding proteins involved in hemostasis and the occurrence of premature myocardial infarction or protection against it