The rural development plans in Europe, within the provisions of Axis Two of the Common Agricultural Policy, consider the opportunity to protect and enhance “environmental-friendly” farming systems. The present paper describes the role of organic farming measures in the promotion and...

The use and valorisation of landscape services provided in agricultural landscapes are assumed to create socio-economic benefits, which in turn can enhance the competitiveness of rural regions. However, the causal relationships between the valorisation of landscape and the socio-economic...

This paper aims at evaluating the impact of the 2003/2005 CAP reform on farm production choices. The outcome of “market orientation” is measured by considering both the short-term production choices and the long-term investment decisions. The Treatment Effect (TE) is estimated through recent...

In this paper Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used to uncover hidden political agenda and value systems concealed behind the alleged “value-free” discourse of EU and US governments on the bioeconomy. The main assumption of the paper is that the claimed social benefits of the bioeconomy,...

Agriculture produce commodities and but also influence the environment. However, even if the value of commodities is easy to determine, it is difficult to assess the efficiency of agricultural production at site level. Furthermore, the valuation of environmental impact is complex. Non-parametric...

Molti studi analizzano il rapporto tra produzione agricola ed emissioni di gas serrra. Nella quantificazione dell’impatto ambientale del settore aagroalimentare, in termini di gas serra, si sta affermando la metodologia del Life Cycle Assesment (LCA) normata dalle ISO 14040 e 14044. Tra i...

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...

The main objective of the paper is to inquiry if the Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES’s) included in the Rural Development Plan in Emilia Romagna have played a role in enhancing the Nature Value of regional farmland. High Nature Value (HNV) farmland is a concept that aims to identify the...

This paper tries to identify under which conditions voluntary certification could be an answer to the governance of sustainability at global level. The study addresses the case of biofuel sustainability certification in Brazil and the role of the EU Directive on biofuels. The case study has...

Upland population levels are strongly correlated to environmental dynamics such as morphology, exposure and climate. A temperature fall leads to a shortening of the plant growth season, which can lead to lower pasture productivity and thus livestock can spend shorter periods in the mountains....