The Common Agricultural Policy 2021-2027: a new history for European agriculture

Contributing to the ongoing debate on the future of European agriculture and rural areas, the study states that, in the light of the present historical contingen- cy, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will need to support the reconciliation between the target objective of competitive agriculture with that of a resilient agri-food system able to develop constant benefits for the entire EU community. Historically, flexibility has been the main incremental feature of the European CAP reforms. For the programming period 2021-2027, the European Commission has presented a com- pletely new model of CAP governance characterized by less detailed rules and more attention to performance, which implies a greater freedom of action for each Member State, but also greater responsibility. The CAP has evolved over time and so today the criticized limits of the European intervention can be considered outdated

How Drought Affects Agricultural Insurance Policies: The Case of Italy

Despite their growing intensity and the enormous costs, adverse meteorological events are still perceived as “exceptional”. Among the adverse weather events, the management of drought risk plays a key role due to the more pressing problem of the scarcity of water resources. In this context, agricultural insurance can represent a financial and risk mitigation tool for farmers. In this perspective, the aims of this study are: (1) to analyze, through a systematic review, the main findings of the scientific literature focused on the empirical and theoretical approach to the relation between adverse weather events in agriculture, risk and insurance; (2) to collect agroclimatic and insurance data for each Italian province for the period 2004-2011, (3) to measure the influence of climatic agroclimatic variables on insurance variables, i.e. Total Premiums, Insured Value and Certificates. The results of the analysis show the significance of the precipitation variable and its negative effect with each insurance dependent variable. The same result can be observed focusing on the effect of minimum temperature on two insurance variables, i.e. Total Premiums and Certificates. Models tested explain a range between 44% and 51% of the variation in our insurance dependent variables

Post-Adversities Recovery and Profitability: The Case of Italian Farmers

Insurance represents one of the main instruments, together with other risk management mechanisms, to face the adverse effects produced by natural calamity that, despite their growing intensity and the enormous costs, are still perceived as “exceptional”. Risk management is an important part of farming, and it is a concern for those governments which aim at achieving their agricultural policy targets. In this context, crop insurance can also represent a financial mitigation tool for farmers to face climate change consequences. This study is focused on the Italian case analyzing the evolution of public support and its effect on risk management policy in agriculture. Our research, based on panel data regressions, provides two different levels of analysis. The first one evaluates how the reimbursed value issued by insurance companies in favor of agricultural firms, as recovery from natural adversities, affects farmers’ profitability. The second one evaluates how the reimbursed value is used in farm management. The results of the analysis demonstrating the significance of insurance variables and their positive effect on the profitability of the farms, represent a strong advance in the farm risk management fiel

Applicability of Industry 4.0 Technologies in the Reverse Logistics: A Circular Economy Approach Based on COmprehensive Distance Based RAnking (COBRA) Method

The logistics sector plays one of the most important roles in the supply chain with the aim of providing a fast, flexible, safe, economical, efficient, and environmentally acceptable performance of freight transport flows. In addition, the popularization of the concept of a circular economy (CE) used to retain goods, components, and materials at their highest usability and value at all times, illustrates the importance of the adequate performance of reverse logistics (RL) processes. However, traditional RL is unable to cope with the requirements of modern supply chains and requires the application of Industry 4.0 technologies, which would make it more efficient. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of various Industry 4.0 technologies in the RL sector in order to point out the most applicable ones. To solve the defined problem, a novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model was defined by combining the best-worst method (BWM) to obtain the criteria weights, and the newly developed comprehensive distance-based ranking (COBRA) method to rank the technologies. Another aim of the study was to validate the newly established method. The results indicated that the most applicable technologies were the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and electronic-mobile marketplaces. These technologies will have a significant impact on the development of RL and the establishment of CE systems, thus bringing about all the related positive effects

social media and environmental sustainability an overview of european countries

The theme of the relationship between social media and sustainability has prompted many scholars to analyze the impact that "virtual information" has on the environment. This study empirically tests two models that examine the effects of cultural values and social media on environmental performance by considering different variables such as Social Media penetration, Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions and Environmental Performance Index. Two multiple linear regression models were employed to test the hypotheses on a sample of 30 European Countries.Empirical results, extensible to all of Europe, conclude that the cultural dimensions analyzed, as well as social media penetration, significantly influence environmental performance of European Countries when we execute a combined model.Social media are arguably an integral part of sustainability strategy and future research on IT and sustainability needs to take a more integrated approach. If we consider that social media have a positive effect on the environment it is easy to intuit that if governance implements effective policies to ensure social media access for everyone, real sustainable development could be achieved

Marine Fisheries and Mariculture in Croatia: Economic and Trade Analysis

The aim of this paper is to identify the state and trends in Croatian marine resource sector which determine the trade balance with Italy. Firstly, size and the structure of the marine fisheries in Croatia are investigated taking into account time trends and the effects of the EU common market policy. Furthermore, we compared the size of export and import of the fishery products. In particular, we look at the relevant indicator of trade with Italy. Since the wholesale market places are established with difficulties in Croatia, the trade channels of the marine fishery products are rather heterogeneous. Next, the market size and structure are analyzed for the specific markets, together with the analysis of the information asymmetry problems. The analysis results with several findings including that the total fish catch volume is accompanied by a decrease in fish catch value. Furthermore, the gap between Italian and Croatian catches in the Mediterranean Sea shrink, and more fish products are exported from Croatia to Italy than imported from Italy to Croatia. The average size of Croatian fishing fleet vessel is still much lower than the average fishing vessel size arriving at Croatian ports. Finally, fish market is underdeveloped in Croatia with low value added created along the trading chains

Ageing effects on the linear and nonlinear viscoelasticity of bituminous binders

The paper investigates the effects of ageing on the linear and nonlinear viscoelastic properties of bituminous binders for paving applications. Four neat binders were analysed in their unaged state and after long-term ageing, which was simulated in the laboratory with the Rolling Thin Film Oven (RTFO) and the Pressure Ageing Vessel (PAV). Amplitude sweep tests and frequency sweep tests were performed to explore the response in the linear domain. Repeated strain sweep tests were carried out to isolate nonlinearity from other mechanisms related to damage. The time–temperature superposition principle and the generalised Maxwell model with a Prony series discretization were used to describe the overall viscoelastic response of binders, introducing strain-dependent shift factors to account for nonlinearity. Results indicate that the adopted experimental and modelling approach allows a proper assessment of the effects of ageing on viscoelasticity

A first analysis on the need to integrate ecological aspects into financial insurance

It is known that financial insurance can address the economic impacts of a natural disaster, but some ecological aspects can play a crucial role in mitigating the overall risks for socio-ecological systems. To better strengthen the study of these relations, the aims of this paper are: (1) to analyze the main research topics of the scientific literature on ecological and/or financial-economic insurance to face natural disasters, through a co-word network analysis; (2) to analyze the temporal trends of the total Gross Insurance Premium and Meteorological and climatological extreme events in 29 OECD countries; and (3) to carry out a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of some selected variables in order to conceptualize a first empirical model combining financial-economic and ecological insurance to face natural disasters. The literature review has shown a predominance of topics related to financial insurance (about 60%), and the co-word map of key words has highlighted a common space where economic and ecological insurances interact. PCA highlighted three major components explaining 90.6% of the overall variation and discriminating aspects more related to the “financial” insurance, from those related to the “ecological” insurance. More in detail, PC1, which represents the financial insurance, explains the 60.4% of variation, PC2 and PC3 that represent surrogates of the “ecological” insurance explain respectively the 19.6% and the 10.6% of variation. On the basis of the application of the proposed empirical model, countries with high levels of financial and ecological preparedness have been identified. The next steps of this research will be focused on a pilot study area where a quantitative assessment will be applied to better define the landscape contribution to natural disaster risk mitigation, the analysis of the role of social capital through a cross-scales approach, in terms of policies and management strategies, and the investigation of innovative economic tools to take into account specific payment for ecosystem services in the context of natural disasters

Metabolomic NMR analysis and organoleptic perceptions of pomegranate wines: Influence of cultivar and yeast on the product characteristics

: Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) fruits are a historical agricultural product of the Mediterranean basin that became increasingly popular in the latest years for being rich in antioxidants and other micronutrients, and are extensively commercialized as fruits, juice, jams and, in some Eastern countries, as a fermented alcoholic beverage. In this work, four different pomegranate wines specifically designed using combinations of two cultivars (Jolly Red and Smith) and two yeast starters with markedly different characteristics (Saccharomyces cerevisiae Clos and Saccharomyces cerevisiae ex-bayanus EC1118) were analyzed. The chemical characterization of the wines together with the originating unfermented juices was performed by 1H NMR spectroscopy metabolomic analysis. The full spectra were used for unsupervised and supervised statistical multivariate analysis (MVA), namely Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Orthogonal Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA), and sparse PCA (SPCA). The MVA of the wines showed a clear discrimination between the cultivars, and a smaller, yet significant, discrimination between the yeasts used. In particular, a higher content of citrate and gallate was observed for the Smith cv. and, on the contrary, a statistically significant higher content of fructose, malate, glycerol, 2,3 butanediol, trigonelline, aromatic amino acids and 4-hydrophenylacetate was observed in Jolly Red pomegranate wines samples. Significant interaction among the pomegranate cultivar and the fermenting yeast was also observed. Sensorial analysis was performed by a panel of testing experts. MVA of tasting data showed that the cultivar significantly affected the organoleptic parameters considered, while the yeast had a minor impact. Correlation analysis between NMR-detected metabolites and organoleptic descriptors identified several potential sensorially-active molecules as those significantly impacting the characteristics of the pomegranate wines