Simone Severini

University of Tuscia (UNITUS)

Durum wheat is essential for global food security. Nevertheless, its cultivation is susceptible to hazards, including unpredictability in yield and grain quality. This systematic review and bibliometric analysis identify factors influencing durum wheat yield and quality, assessing the degree of control farmers have over these factors. The goal is t...

While the presence of immigrants in the agricultural sector is widely acknowledged, the empirical evidence on its economic consequences is lacking, especially from a microeconomic perspective. Using the Farm Accountancy Data Network panel data for Italian dairy farms in the period 2008–2018, the present study investigates the relationship between f...

The Italian legislator has adopted several instruments to discourage undeclared work and exploitative labour in agriculture, mostly of a penal-repressive nature. Among the direct and indirect policy measures, the ‘Quality Agricultural Work Network’ represents an interesting approach to producing a ‘whitelist’ of farmers compliant with labour regula...

A significant amount of political support is directed towards promoting the development of rural areas in Europe. One reason is that rural households are perceived as having a lower income than non-rural ones. However, empirical evidence on the income differential between rural and non-rural areas in Europe is hard to find and incomplete. The prese...

A large amount of policy support is spent to foster the development of rural areas in Europe. However, empirical evidence on the well-being differential between rural and urban areas in Europe is scant and incomplete. The present study develops a systematic literature review on this topic, bridging a gap in research as a systematic analysis on the...

This study investigates the risks and vulnerabilities affecting food supply and food security in the EU, including differences across Member States, sectors and stages of the EU food supply chain. The study uses data from a systematic literature review, semi-structured interviews and an online survey of key stakeholders, and employs qualitative and...

According to stakeholders, many European farming systems are close to critical thresholds regarding the challenges they face (e.g., droughts, price declines), functions they deliver (e.g., economic viability, biodiversity and habitat) and attributes required for resilience (e.g., social self-organization). To accelerate a transition process towards...

Agriculture is one of the sectors most exposed to a plethora of risky phenomena such as weather, pests and diseases, changes in prices and government policies, instability of global markets. We review the literature on risk management (RM) in agriculture focusing on five key issues: i) why evidence on RM is often controversial; ii) how farmers beha...

Productivity is an always-hotly-debated issue within the EU agricultural policymaking, particularly concerning the effect of subsidies distributed via the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The cereal sector is under particular political scrutiny nowadays, with the Ukraine conflict and environmental issues menacing food security levels for both deve...

This article investigates the presence of a farm–nonfarm income gap along the income distribution in the European Union. Our findings show that the income disparity between farm and nonfarm households varies at the opposite poles of the distribution within and between countries. On average, farm households in the lowest quartile are worse off than...

Total factor productivity (TFP) is a key determinant of farm development, a sector that receives substantial public support. The issue has taken on great importance today, where the conflict in Ukraine has led to repercussions on the cereal markets. This paper investigates the effects of different subsidies on the productivity of cereal farms, acco...

Identifying factors that affect participation is key to a successful insurance scheme. This study's challenges involve using many factors that could affect insurance participation to make a better forecast.Huge numbers of factors affect participation, making evaluation difficult. These interrelated factors can mask the influence on adhesion predict...

The European Union’s Farm-to-Fork strategy, aiming at increasing the environmental sustainability of farming, is oriented to limit farm inputs that could harm the environment. This restrictive policy affects farmers’ productive choices and economic well-being. However, limited attention has been paid to how this could affect the economic risk farme...

Climate change and extreme weather events undermine smallholder household food and income security in many rural areas of developing countries. Nature-based solutions and the use of Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS) into the local farming system have been claimed to sustainably help farmers adapt to climate change and to manage risk more ef...

Purpose This study assesses the potential impact of the European Income Stabilization Tool (IST – a whole farm income risk management [RM] tool) within a farm cooperative specializing in vineyards and operating in a small area of production. The authors assess the conditions under which IST could improve the well-being of the associated farmers and...

This paper studies the impact of foreign labour on the competitiveness of Italian dairy farms relying on the theory of foreign labour in profit functions. Application of an endogenous switching regression model identifies the drivers of adoption of the immigrant workforce. A counterfactual analysis performed on unit labour costs between farms emplo...

Organic farming is supported in the European Union (EU), among others, via area-based organic payments, targeting better environmental standards, as well as consumers' demand for organic products. Despite the wide interest growing on hazelnut production in non-traditional production areas in Italy, supply of organic hazelnuts remains negligible. At...

This paper assesses how efficiently Common Agricultural Policy direct payments enhance farm incomes by applying a quantile continuous treatment effect model on the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network sample. Adding to previous analyses, we show that income responses to direct payments are higher in large farms rather than in small farms and lower...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

What exactly is resilience and how can it be enhanced? Farming systems in Europe are rapidly evolving while at the same time being under threat, as seen by the disappearance of dozens of farms every day. Farming systems must become more resilient in response to growing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges facing Europe's ag...

Farming systems in Europe are experiencing multiple stresses and shocks that may push systems beyond critical thresholds after which system change is expected to occur. These critical thresholds may lie in the economic, environmental, social and institutional domain. In this paper we take a participatory approach with involvement of farming system...

The Income Stabilization Tool, a risk management scheme introduced within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2014–2020, could help European Union farmers manage the income risks they face. This study assesses the potential impact of implementing this tool through the maximum level of contribution to the fund which determines an indifference to pa...

The challenges faced by agricultural systems call for an advance in risk management assessments. The paper proposes a comprehensive, participatory approach that accounts for multi-stakeholder perspectives relying on 11 focus groups hold in as many EU regions, for brainstorming and gathering suggestions to improve risk management. To this end, the c...

The effects of direct payments on rice income variability in Japan are analysed based on a balanced panel dataset of Japanese rice farms for 2012–2016. Firstly, the contribution of income components to rice income variability and the effects of a direct payment reduction are discussed by applying variance decomposition. Secondly, robust regression...

Context Resilience is the ability to deal with shocks and stresses, including the unknown and previously unimaginable, such as the Covid-19 crisis. Objective This paper assesses (i) how different farming systems were exposed to the crisis, (ii) which resilience capacities were revealed and (iii) how resilience was enabled or constrained by the far...

The challenges faced by agricultural systems call for an advance in risk management (RM) assessments. This research identifies and discusses potential improvements to RM across 11 European Union (EU) farming systems (FS). The paper proposes a comprehensive, participatory approach that accounts for multi-stakeholder perspectives relying on 11 focus...

Since its inception, the E.U.'s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) aimed at ensuring an adequate and stable farm income. While recognizing that the CAP pursues a larger set of objectives, this thesis focuses on the impact of the CAP on the level and the stability of farm income in Italian farms. It uses microdata from a high standardized dataset, the...

There is a need for participatory methods that simultaneously assess agricultural sustainability and resilience at farming system level, as resilience is needed to deal with shocks and stresses on the pathways to more sustainable systems. We present the Framework of Participatory Impact Assessment for Sustainable and Resilient FARMing systems (FoPI...

Techniques based on terminated cover crops are proposed in organic agriculture instead of traditional inter-row tillage for weed control in subsequent grain crops. We estimated the profitability and evaluated the riskiness of novel techniques compared to the traditional one. Two-year yield data from three on-farm trials for corn and one for soybean...

The resilience of EU farming systems is perceived to be low to moderate. Many farming systems are perceived to be close to critical thresholds, with low economic viability leading to farmer exits, making it hard to maintain the social fabric, natural resources and biodiversity. There are limits to success with regard to increasing farm size and int...

Government interventions in the agricultural sector have been historically justified by the existence of an income disparity between farmers and non‐farmers. However, recent studies have found that such disparity is disappearing over time, particularly in the United States. This work offers the first longitudinal systematic assessment on the averag...

An increasing variety of stresses and shocks provides challenges and opportunities for EU farming systems. This article presents findings of a participatory assessment on the sustainability and resilience of eleven EU farming systems, to inform the design of adequate and relevant strategies and policies. According to stakeholders that participated...

The paper compares the income conditions of farm and nonfarm households in the whole EU and within three geographical groups of countries for the period 2008–2016. Overcoming the simple comparison of raw means of the groups, we estimate the farm/nonfarm income differentials by using Regression Adjusted and Covariate Matching techniques, which allow...

The sustainability and resilience of EU farming systems are threatened. According to stakeholders in selected EU farming systems, many of these systems are close to critical thresholds regarding the challenges they face (e.g., droughts, price declines), functions they deliver (e.g., economic viability, biodiversity and habitat) and attributes requi...

We assess the correlation between CAP support provided to farmers and their income and use of capital and labour in the first year of the new CAP regime. This is done applying three regression models on the Italian FADN farms controlling for other farm characteristics. CAP annual payments are positively correlated with farm income and capital but a...

In facing future challenges, risk management ( RM ) is essential for European farming systems ( FS ). This article synthesises lessons learned on RM based on a farm survey, interviews with farmers, and focus groups involving a range of FS actors. In contrast to previous literature, we broaden the definition of RM to include strategies that target l...

As a multi-objective policy, the EU Common Agricultural Policy continues to secure significant income support for farmers as one of the nine specific objectives. We estimate the income transfer efficiency of a broad set of pivotal policy measures, focusing on the effects of farm structure on income transfer efficiency. We use dynamic modelling , ba...

For improving the sustainability and resilience of EU farming systems, it is important to assess their likely responses to future challenges under future scenarios. We evaluated future resilience in 11 case studies across the EU, using a soft coupling of different qualitative and quantitative approaches. Results from the qualitative approach "FoP...

This study outlines the current trends and patterns of farming employment in the EU and discusses possible development paths for the European agricultural labour force. In particular, this study investigates the drivers of and structural changes within agricultural labour markets at regional, national and EU level, building on a range of quantitati...

European agriculture is facing increasing economic, environmental, institutional, and social challenges, from changes in demographic trends to the effects of climate change. In this context of high instability, the agricultural sector in Europe needs to improve its resilience and sustainability. Local assessments and strategies at the farming syste...

Recent literature reviews of empirical models optimizing long-term investments in agriculture see gaps with regard to (i) separating investment and financing decisions, (ii) considering explicitly risk and temporal flexibility, and (iii) accounting for farm-level resource endowments and other constraints. Inspired by real options approaches, this p...

The exposure of farmers to different (and increasing) risks has been recognized by the EU policy, which supports several risk management tools through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Despite the vulnerability of the agricultural sector , and the attention paid at the EU level, the uptake of such tools is generally low across EU countries. The...

Abstract This paper provides an ex ante assessment of the effects of the Income Stabilization Tool (IST), a new risk management tool proposed in the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. We investigate the effects of IST on income variability and levels as well as on income inequality in the farming population. We take Italian agricultu...

For improving sustainability and resilience of EU farming system, the current state needs to be assessed, before being able to move on to future scenarios. Assessing sustainability and resilience of farming systems is a multi-faceted research challenge in terms of the scientific domains and scales of integration (farm, household, farming system lev...

Agricultural systems in Europe face accumulating economic, ecological and societal challenges, raising concerns about their resilience to shocks and stresses. These resilience issues need to be addressed with a focus on the regional context in which farming systems operate because farms, farmers' organizations, service suppliers and supply chain ac...

The exposure of farmers to different (and increasing) risks has been recognized by the EU policy, which supports several risk management tools through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Despite the vulnerability of the agricultural sector, and the attention paid at the EU level, the uptake of such tools is generally low across EU countries. The...

Assessing farm profitability and economic risk is important to support farmers' decisions. Several factors affect yields and product prices, in turn influencing farmers' income level and economic risk. However, the literature has often neglected to explicitly account for the role of product quality. This is particularly important for crops such as...

This report presents the results of a participatory sustainability and resilience assessment of 11 farming systems in the European Union (EU). The assessment focussed on system functions, applied strategies and resilience attributes. Overall, workshop results revealed a high allocated importance to the functions related to food production and econo...

This chapter analyzes the recent evolution and current situation of the Italian irrigation sector, which presents a remarkable dualism between the north and south of the country. After a brief review of the historical origins of irrigation, the chapter examines the role of the state in the regulation and promotion of irrigation in modern Italy sinc...

This paper investigates the potential impact of the income stabilisation tool (IST), currently introduced in the European Common Agricultural Policy to reduce farmers’ income risks using Italian agriculture as case study. The paper extends the existing literature by investigating the effects of two implementation issues: level of aggregation of mut...

Farming systems in Europe face a vast range of environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges. Examples include more volatile producer and input prices, higher probability of extreme weather events, increasing dependence on land owners and financial institutions, organizational change within value chains, competing policy objectives a...

During the 52nd Conference of the Italian Society of Agricultural Economists (SIDEA), Italian agricultural economists have been given the opportunity to debate regarding internationalization, competition, and local development in agri-food systems. This special issue of the journal AFE contains four selected papers presented in this conference. The...

La RICA fornisce uno strumento insostituibile per l'analisi dei redditi delle aziende agricole. Tuttavia, in un contesto di forte pluriattività presente nelle famiglie agricole, è emersa la necessità di analizzare l'insieme dei redditi generati all'interno delle famiglie agricole. A questo proposito la RICA raccoglie anche numerose informazioni rel...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess how direct payments (DPs) of the Common Agricultural Policy affect income and revenue variability faced by Italian farmers. Design/methodology/approach Balanced farm-level panel data are used to construct coefficients of variation over the period 2003-2012. Nonlinear robust regression techniques are u...

The main novelty of the most recent Common Agricultural Policy reform is the greening, which provides a payment to farmers who respect certain ‘agricultural practices beneficial for the climate and the environment’. The greening is part of a framework that includes other changes to the first pillar. In the present study the possible impact of first...

This paper estimates how direct payments provided by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) affect variability of farm income over time. The analysis is based on robust regression estimations developed on a cross section database of a constant sample of 2402 Italian farms during the decade 2003-2012. Results show that CAP direct payments allow for a...

In transition economies, the shift to a market system has been accompanied by relevant evolutions of farm income level. Sustainability of farming depends not only on the level but also on the variability of economic results over time. Climatic changes and increasing market uncertainty make small-scale farmers particularly vulnerable to this. This p...

Common Agricultural Policy uses a large share of its budget to support and stabilise the income of EU farmers by means of direct payments (DP). This paper assesses how much and how DP reduce the variability of farm income over time. The analysis is developed on a constant sample of 2402 Italian farms during the decade 2003–2012. It considers both t...

This paper analyses the instability of farm income experienced by a constant sample of Italian farms over the period 2003-2012. It assesses the extent of the aggregation bias due to the use of aggregated vs. single farm data and estimates the level of farm income variability in several groups of farms for the whole period and for two sub-periods. D...