Although RDP 2007-2013 expenditures represent less than 20% of total CAP expenditures, this policy is supposed to support rural areas in facing new challenges. Actually, EU rural areas are going through major transformations. Due to the very different development processes that rural areas have...

We analyse the determinants of off-farm labour participation of farmers, an issue relevant in view of the agricultural sector coping with increasing productivity and in terms of rural development. We apply a farm-household theoretical model. The data for the empirical analysis are a 5 year...

Sustainable management of natural resources and climate action together form one of the three objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2014–2020. They are addressed by replacing the existing direct payments under Pillar 1 with a basic payment topped up by an additional payment...

In the last decade Italy has experienced a consistent decline in the number of agricultural firms. Beyond the new definition of agricultural firms, this structural change of farms is characterized by exit of small farms and increasing farm size. This paper aims at analyzing the determinants of...

Despite a large literature about energy production from renewable resources, the specific interplay between farm characteristics, market, local regulation and the CAP in the adoption of energy-related technologies by farmers is still poorly studied. This paper aims at analyzing the farmers’...

Agriculture is the main source of nitrogen loading (EEA, 2012) and is the sector with the largest remaining emission reduction potential (Sutton et al., 2011). Furthermore, surpluses of nitrogen are forecast to grow in the next decade (FAO, 2008). The objective of this study is to evaluate the...

The on-farm diversification toward multifunctional activities is perceived as central in the CAP policy reform and in Horizon 2020 strategies, because it strengthen territorial and social cohesion of the rural areas. While relations between farm-household diversification and rural economies are...

Water scarcity and droughts events in Italy are occurring more frequently than in previous decades and are forecasted to be more severe in the future. Current water management will likely be no more suitable to face extreme events and more efficient instruments to balance future demand and...

As policy makers, taxpayers and consumers are willing to know the actual contribution of farming to natural and social environment, sustainability and sustainable development arose as key issues in public debates. Sustainability is a multifaceted concept that includes environmental, economic and...

In spite of several cases study existing that assess the profitability of farms participating in direct sales activities (Brown, 2002; Brown and Miller (2008), no analysis has verified whether the notion that farmers participating in short supply chains are profitable holds to the empirical test....