RISULTATI RICERCA

This paper identifies, quantifies, and qualifies the streams and models of public expenditure in the agricultural sector for the 2010-2020 period, and attempts to respond to the main preliminary needs of interventions that benefit the agricultural sector.The specific methodology of the CREA has been used to classify public expenditure on agriculture at the national and regional levels, thus allowing for a homogeneous classification of all direct and indirect support for the sector, which has been obtained from the accounting records of the disbursing agencies.This is accompanied by the use of cluster analysis to identify the support models for the sector that have been adopted by the Italian regions.Through the analysis of FAO data on the Agriculture Orientation Index (AOI), national trends in spending are identified and compared with the European and global contexts, which also allows tracking of the evolution of the national agricultural policy independently of support from the Community Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Agriculture is a risky industry and is present in every management choice the farmer makes. Farms can experiment with different tools that can contain the impact of adverse events to protect production facilities, investments, and income generated by farming. This is the context for the study conducted in Sicily on a sample of farms of different types to explain farmers’ decision-making process in adopting insurance offered in the subsidized market. The study adopted three socio-psychological constructs, Attitude (ATT), Subjective Norm (S.N.), and Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC), derived from the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). It proposed the addition of a new construct, Risk Factors (RISK), and farm type. The results indicated that factors including Attitude, S.N., and PBC are positively significant when understanding farmers’ intentions to adopt insurance. However, the additional factors included in the regression model (RISK and farm type) were statistically insignificant, rejecting the efficiency of an extended theory of planned behavior framework. Based on these results, it was concluded that combining extension services to improve awareness of the importance of insurance facilitated by the public contribution service could significantly influence farmers’ intention to adopt it.

Historically, both governmental and private sectors have significantly underinvested in the agriculture industry.Increasing agricultural and food system investments is necessary to enhance food security and nutrition, reduce poverty, and adapt to climate change. To achieve long-term benefits, it is crucial to ensure not only that more investments are made, but also that these investments are responsible.The purpose of this paper is to conduct a literature review of financial sustainability and ethical investing in the agriculture industry. The findings indicate that the academic community has begun to focus on these concerns in recent years. Specifically, issues concerning finance in developing nations and the management of irrigation systems are attracting attention.This paper’s goal is to encourage more financial institutions, financial services managers, policymakers, and universities to participate in sustainable development projects in the financial services sector.

The agribusiness sector needs substantial funding to initiate an ecological transition involving healthy diets and the creation of local circuits and linkages. One sector that has yet to be studied from this perspective is vending, whose importance is confirmed by its profits, especially in Italy. At present, the vending sector cannot be considered sustainable as it rarely contributes to the development of healthy diets and local economies with low environmental impact. There are cases of products with suitable characteristics that can push the sector towards more sustainable dynamics, but such products often do not achieve the success they deserve for various socioeconomic reasons. Access to financial investment or alternative modes of financing could help small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector overcome these difficulties.

This paper aims to demystify a lot of misconceptions still widely circulating today about the alleged properties of blockchain and then illustrate the real opportunities that this technology offers for “food system” and how it must be correctly implemented for it to be truly useful, for producers and consumers, particularly in the agrifood sector. The concepts of blockchain opportunities and incompleteness of agri-food chain projects based on blockchain technology are then explained, setting out the minimum and necessary characteristics required to make the use of this technology useful and effective (Minimum Viable Ecosystem). The process governance levels for the development and maintenance of a blockchain traceability project are then illustrated, focusing on the role and responsibility of each player in the supply chain.Finally, the structure of a blockchain solution is described, focusing on a number of structural and technological solutions by outlining the concepts of consistency checking for the validation of input data with appropriate smart contracts, and of information frameworks for the subsequent scrutiny of data in audit operations and the assignment of levels of reliability.These are essential prerequisites for a collaborative blockchain data management to pursue the objective of actual reliability and transparency of information.

This paper assesses the efficiency of public agricultural expenditure in each Italian region through the analysis of regional budgets, both as a whole and in relation to specific agricultural policy measures. The degree of integration/complementarity between regional funds and Community funds of the second pillar of the CAP is also evaluated, in order to determine whether European resources are used by the Regions as a substitute for or in addition to regional measures. In Italy, public agricultural funding comes from three sources: the EU, the State, and the regions. While the literature on the effectiveness and efficiency of public spending in agriculture focuses on EU funds, the present research also takes into consideration the agricultural spending of Regions.This original analysis of agricultural spending at the regional level has been made possible by the databank of the CREA (Council for Agricultural Research and Economics), which has been gathering information on the allocations, payments, and remaining balances of regional accounts since 1990. The expenditure items for the agricultural sector included in the regional budgets were reclassified according to an original methodology created by the INEA (National Institute of Agricultural Economics, today CREA). The results show that the overall efficiency of public expenditure has improved over the last two decades (from less than 40% in 2000 to just over 50% in 2019). This improvement is quite evident in the South and the Islands and less so in the North. Agricultural policy measures that can be defined as “short term measures” (contributions to public and private entities involved in agricultural and forestry activities for running costs, such as salaries, telephone, electricity, etc.) show a good spending capacity, while measures requiring planning, such as business investments, still present difficulties. As regards integration/complementarity between regional funds and EU Fund for Rural Development Programmes (RDPs), the regions have been classified depending or whether or not they differentiate between the RDP financing and Budget financing. In the most recent period of 2014-2020, most regions have tended to target both sources of funding to support the same types of priority activities.

Agricultural firms are characterized by significant investments, both in fixed capital and in working capital. To finance investments, in addition to equity capital, access to credit becomes essential. Concerning this topic, various researches have shown that agricultural firms have difficulty accessing credit, due to reduced average size of farms, often poor financial culture and difficulty in communicating with lenders.To facilitate relations between agricultural firms and lenders in Italy, various regulatory provisions, over time, have changed the regulatory framework of agricultural credit. The offer of credit lines is today wide, even if granting of credit favors larger and more structured firms, and credit is concentrated in a few Italian regions. Public intervention through guarantees, and the introduction of a non-possessory revolving pledge, have favored access to credit for agricultural firms in recent years.The business cases analyzed have highlighted how investments of firms in fixed capital for the purchase of plants, and working capital, for aging of productions, amplify financial needs of firms and make it necessary to evaluate financial sustainability of operations. Recent increase in loans for ESG investments, and consequent regulatory framework, can facilitate financing of agricultural firms, enhancing their social role also in favor of smaller firms, cooperatives and firms in disadvantaged areas.

The financial and real crisis started in 2007-2008 has deeply transformed the way the Italian financial and capital market act. Italian SMEs need to be aware of the transformation not to be pushed out of the market itself and to take profit of the new relevant opportunities coming out thanks to the emerging new products and new intermediaries.The paper focuses the disappear of banks relationship lending and provides evidence about how to approach the market in the emerging “competing for capital” prevailing rule.It also stresses the relevance of ESG topics as emerging risk factor companies must look at when asking for new finance because of the Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on sustainability related disclosures in the financial services (SFDR).

The article begins by giving a normative framework related to Restorative Justice, a topic contained in the Legislative Decree no. 150 of October 10th 2022, effective as of December 20th 2022, in implementation of Law no. 134 of September 27 2021, delegating to the Government for efficiency of the criminal trial, as well as on Restorative Justice and provision for the expeditious settlement of judicial proceedings.After giving this necessary premise, the article goes on by defining and characterizing the restorative paradigm within its multiple fields of application (not only focusing on the judicial-penal one), and eventually comes to describe a project that informs and sensitizes on the issues of Restorative Justice, which was realized by a therapeutic community from Open Group, a social Cooperative based in Bologna.