Aldo Bertazzoli

Food Chains and Value System: The Case of Potato, Fruit, and Cheese

The aim of the article is to analyse patterns of value system sharing along food chains, so as to explore the agrifood enterprises capacity to be competitive and sustainable. The research focused on three food chains: potato, fruit, and Grana cheese of the Emilia Romagna region. The article adopts the value system approach. The methodology is aimed at creating a consolidated financial statement for each food chain so as to re-create the chain operating profit and identify how this is shared among the different food chain stages. The analysis is carried out on 189 enterprises for the potato chain, 187 for the fruit chain, and 203 for the cheese chain. The number of enterprises was invariable over five years (2003–2007), leading to 2,900 financial statement analysis. The chains analysed show differences. In the potato and fruit chains 35% of value is created by distribution, whereas in the cheese chain only, it is 13.6%. Over the five years, value decreases 5% in fruit and potato and 9% in cheese. The lack of adequate strategic food chain partnership allows an increasing retail market power over the whole chain at the expense of the primary sector entailing a declining sustainability for all chain actors.

Consumers perception and evaluation of fresh cut buying attributes: a survey on the Italian market

Abstract During the last twenty years, consumer choice in high income countries is no longer merely dictated by price and the organoleptic characteristics of a product, but also by other features some of which are not patently tangible. The growing importance of such attributes in the process of consumer choice is not only due to income increase, but also to changes in lifestyle such as migrations from the countryside, a generalized urbanization and consequential city life style, female emancipation and work outside the domestic walls for women, the drastic decrease in hard physical labor and the process of internationalization. The present survey study aims to explore the importance that Italian consumers give to fresh cut buying attributes and which of these attributes should be taken into consideration by industries in order to satisfy the needs of the most critical shoppers. Where possible, market and survey data for fresh cut products will be compared with those for cooked products and before presenting the results and conclusions of the study, the technical issues of processing will be highlighted owing to the fact that they affect the marketing of these products, the recent market situation with regard to consumption will be illustrated and the methodology used will be described.

Diversification pathways and farming systems: Insights from the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy:

The study analyzes and explains on-farm diversification in Emilia-Romagna, a productive and agriculturally intensified region in Italy. The purpose was to contribute to knowledge gaps on the adoption of different diversification strategies in relation to farming system. Based on farm-level census data gathered by the Italian National Institute of Statistics during the sixth general agricultural census, two on-farm diversification pathways were investigated: deepening and broadening. The farmer’s decision to diversify activities and the identification of diversification pathways were analyzed using logit and multinomial logit models. The results show that arable farms adopt broadening strategies, intensive farms opt for deepening ones, and specialized adopters of quality schemes combine both strategies. Furthermore, in contrast to the existing research, the study highlights that intensive farms are more likely than arable farms to diversify. Finally, the findings provide insights to improve analyses in the context of policy and regional strategic support.

Women’s Income and Healthy Eating Perception

Abstract Purpose The purpose of the chapter is to explore the relation between women’s healthy eating intention and food attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and barriers with a focus on the effect of women’s income differences. Methodology/approach The research applies the Theory of Planned Behavior, including attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceived barriers, and ability opportunity resources. Close-ended survey responses of 704 women between ages 25 and 65 years, affluent and at-risk-of-poverty women in three EU-member countries were analyzed. Findings Women are mostly positively inclined towards healthy eating, and income does not differentiate women’s inclination. Influencing factors are perceived behavioral control, attitudes towards healthy eating, subjective norms, and level of knowledge regarding healthy food. Barriers, when present, are similar for lower or higher income women and relate to routinized family habits and food affordability and availability. Research limitations/implications Future research should thoroughly investigate family network and structure features, with a focus on family food preferences and habits. Social and practical implications Encouraging women’s healthy behavior also impacts children and men, and vice-versa. There is need to target all family components with enjoyable, self-rewarding, emotionally gratifying, and pleasant tasting food. Originality/value Income is an overestimated driver in healthy food choices. Women are strongly influenced by personal and environmental factors, mainly personal control, feelings, and family habits.

A Dual Approach to Evaluating the Agricultural Productivity of Fruit Farms in Emilia-Romagna

Productivity analysis is a frequent topic on the agenda for many researchers, whose efforts are focused on establishing adequate measurement criteria and then applying them to specific case studies. Based on accountancy micro-data for 2000 to 2009 for a group of fruit-growing farms, the purpose of this study was to verify the similarity between two methods of productivity measurement: the total factor productivity (TFP) index and the Malmquist index. The results broadly confirm the substantial congruence of the two indices and show an increase in the productivity of fruit farms in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. However, the results should be carefully interpreted, since the productivity fluctuations during the decade suggest that this kind of analysis should be conducted using medium to long-term time-series data. Furthermore, the TFP index seems to be generally higher than the Malmquist index, implying that these measures are suitable for an overview of trends rather than exact measures of productivity.

Inputs use in the agriculture of Emilia-Romagna: farm comparison through the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index

Abstract In order to measure agriculture sustainability, the efficient use of inputs becomes a crucial issue. In this perspective, the analysts concentrate their attention on the total factor productivity index (TFP). In this view, Lynam and Herdt proposed the TFP as a suitable assessment of the sustainability of single crops, of cropping systems or of farming systems. Even if the TFP does not take into account the non-market output (social and environmental aspects), it is possible to argue that a negative trend of TFP represents a resource degradation if related to the generated outputs. On the other hand, the non-negative trend of TFP represents a fitting measure of a sustainable agricultural system and of an efficient use of the resources. The aim of the paper is to analyze the productivity in the use of external factors in different types of farming at the Emilia-Romagna Region level, that is specialist field crops, specialist permanent crops and specialist milk production farms. A significant number of indexing procedures is accessible to evaluate the efficiency in converting inputs into outputs. In this paper, the TFP is estimated through an indirect evaluation of the quantity index of outputs and inputs of each farming system taken into account in the analysis. Purposely, the amount of the total sales is considered as a measure of the output, whereas intermediate consumption are considered as a measure of the inputs to evaluate the productivity of external factors (PEF). The value of chemicals and the value of fodders and supplements was considered in order to compute the productivity of these specifics inputs. Data, referring to the period 2000–2009, are collected from the farm accountancy data network of the Emilia-Romagna Region DG Agriculture. The study highlights how the PEF measured through the TFP approach seems to be an effective way to evaluate the sustainability of the use of agricultural resources. Even if the limit of this approach comes from the complexity in understanding the real in depth causes of the productivity changing (e.g. technical efficiency, scale efficiency), the use of number index to evaluate the TFP seems to be simple and fitting for a first exploratory investigation.