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The increasing micronutrient deficiency within the nutritional habits of the world&rsquo, s population and the growing need for healthy foods have given rise to the development of biofortified crops. In a context where the consumer&rsquo, s attention is focused on a healthy lifestyle and respect for the environment, the cultivation of potatoes enriched with selenium offers an undisputed advantage in the pursuit of this twofold objective. The crop has been analyzed through the life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology in order to highlight the environmental burden generated by selenium (Se) potato cultivation and to compare it with potato in conventional regime. The LCA highlights how the biofortified product is more sustainable than the conventional one, and this not only provides a benefit for the consumer, but also designates a new time for farmers who have the opportunity to implement more environmentally friendly practices.

In the transition from linear production systems, unsustainable from the point of view of resources, to a model that finds strength in environmental, social and economic sustainability, the circular economy paradigm is the foundation that facilitates the planetary agro-ecological transition. The European Union has taken a number of steps (including the Circular Economy Package of Directives) shaping circularity as a wide-ranging driver measure involving many sectors. The paper intends to provide a regulatory framework on the current general situation regarding circularity in European Union, in order to extrapolate and give evidence to the aspects that intersect the agri-food sector. This is not only because they are poorly addressed in the literature, but also because there is a lack of regulatory instruments on the circular economy specifically addressing this area of interest. For this purpose, the analysis focuses on waste and residue/scrap management issues, recognized by law as by-products and end-of-waste status, as they are covered by circular economy legislation and as they can be applied to the agri-food sector. The latter allow the implementation of circularity strategies in the agri-food sector and, given the numerousness of production chains and the peculiarities of each of them, various regeneration and/or reuse processes of specific resources may be depicted. The intent is to provide useful knowledge on how to implement sustainable waste management, also proposing a concrete case on a by-product of olive oil processing, through which it is possible to highlight how the correct application of regulations favors the adoption of circular economic and management models in the firms involved, as well as informing the relevant economic operators on the possible profiles of legal liability that may arise from insufficient knowledge. Furthermore, this paper delves into the European Green Deal’s Strategy as it enriches the circular economy paradigm with new facets. NextGenerationEU and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan financially support this strategy in the aftermath of the socioeconomic crisis from COVID-19 in the EU Member States. This is in order to achieve the objective of achieving the agro-ecological transition.

In recent decades, European policy has targeted specific measures towards SMEs. The recently concluded Horizon 2020 Programme, under the Europe 2020 Strategy, has provided economic support to stimulate competitiveness and boost the economy of member states by focusing on innovation. The SME Instrument, through a structure of multiple calls, constituted the vehicle for SMEs to access the funds made available by the European Union with disruptive innovation proposals. The initial structure of the SME Instrument, developed in phases and along the lines of the US Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Programme, was afterwards simplified in the design of its successor, the EIC Accelerator Pilot. The success of the above mentioned economic instruments led the European institutions to develop a new instrument, the EIC Accelerator, supported by the current Horizon Europe programme. After outlining the main features of this transition and the novelties introduced, this paper aims to ascertain the extent to which SMEs in the agri-food sector in Italy have had the ability and opportunity to intercept funds by measuring participation in the SME Instrument. Furthermore, it intends to verify which type of firms in the agri-food sector, divided into agricultural and industrial enterprises, intercepted more of the examined funds, and which organisational phase, productive or commercial, the enterprises have been oriented towards, also giving relevancy to the specific objects of the winning projects.

Ever increasingly more, all the actors directly or indirectly involved in the planning processes express the need to know the effects deriving from the implementation of rural development policy. In this direction, evaluation can make an important contribution, fostering the development of a ‘good policy’ as underlined by EU regulations. Among the specific evaluation questions developed by the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, one of them relates to the improvement of governance. Considering the Adaptive Co-Management (ACM) approach’s capacity as a proxy of the quality of network governance, the study aims to propose the ACM theoretical framework as a suitable model with which to study the social interactions between actors in the smallest unit of the LEADER process (i.e., the local action group’s (LAG’s) partnership governance). The proposed methodology is subsequently tested on a specific case study through the evaluation of the partnership governance of two case studies in the South of Italy. The empirical evidence supports the idea that ACM approach may represent a new model to assess the quality of the implementation process of the LEADER Programme. In addition, the ACM approach can lead to a new organizational and self-evaluation model of LAGs which places an emphasis on the importance of the relational process among its members.

Around the world, interest is growing in the circular economy in response to the current unsustainable model of production and consumption based on increased use and depletion of resources. This paper provides a review of the academic literature on the circular economy in agri-food systems, with the aims of understanding its main characteristics and perspectives, and summarizing and discussing the literature in this field. This review provides a deeper understanding of the opportunities provided by the circular economy as a solution to the current need to reduce the environmental impacts of business-as-usual economic systems and the state of the art of the circular economy in the academic debate. The results are discussed based on the chosen topic-core investigated in this review: business model and organization management, food loss and waste along the supply chain, analytical tools for the circular economy, stakeholder acceptance of the circular economy, and mitigation strategies and political approach. The findings show the need for the implementation of cleaner production models and consequent increases in stakeholder responsibilities and awareness, from both producers and consumers, as well as the need for the implementation of suitable policies and tools.

This research provides an overview on horticulture innovations in the last decade through a literature review and the use of a computer qualitative data analysis. We used Leximancer text mining software to identify concepts, themes and pathways linked with horticulture innovations. The software tool enabled us to “zoom out” to gain a broad perspective of the pooled data, and it indicated which studies clustered around the dominant topic. It displays the extracted information in a visual form, to wit, an interactive concept map, which summaries the interconnected themes and demonstrates any interdependencies. The text mining analysis revealed that the themes strongly related to “innovation” are “water”, “urban”, “system”, “countries” and “technology”. The outputs identified have been interpreted to discover meaning from the content analysis, since the software can facilitate a comprehensive and transparent data coding but cannot replace researcher’s interpretive work. Furthermore, we focused on the diffusion and the barriers for the spread of innovation, pointing out the differences about developing and advanced countries. This analysis allows the researcher to have a holistic understanding of the examination area and could lead to further studies.

One of the factors that will affect the livability of cities and the overall citizens’ quality of life in the future is certainly climate change. Urban areas will play a fundamental role in the commitment against climate change and will have to develop appropriate adaptation actions, in accordance with the European Strategy against climate change, including the planning and implementation of Green Infrastructures (GIs). They produce various environmental and social benefits in the urban context. Various studies have shown that citizenship involvement at all levels is necessary for the evaluation of the sharing of the proposed projects. The research proposes an innovative methodological model to support administrations in the strategic planning choice of GIs according to a shared and circular approach. To perform a multi-layer assessment, the multi-criteria evaluation will be combined with the circular evaluation model called Green City Circle. The evaluation is set up as a circular process, followed by a first investigative phase, followed by a proactive phase of solutions and an implementation phase up to a final stage of evaluation of the results and strategies for long-term sustainability. The study was carried out in the city of Catania to test a planning and management tool for GIs envisaged by the administration as win–win climate adaptation measures.

While admitting that neophobia and sociocultural factors negatively affect consumers&rsquo, propensity to consume insect-based foods, other aspects related to food values that consumers attach to these foods could have an influence on consuming decision. In order to identify the motivations and determinants that influence the propensity to consume insects and then to explore the drivers behind consumers&rsquo, willingness to consume insect-based foods, the data collected through the questionnaire were processed. After a descriptive analysis of the data, ANOVA was performed. Moreover, Student&rsquo, s t test and pairwise correlation indices were estimated in order to determine statistically significant correlation. Our findings show that information about edible insects brought about an increase in food neophobia and appearance affected the expected liking levels. In addition, we have shown that respondents&rsquo, propensity to consume insect-based foods also depends on consumers&rsquo, subjective beliefs about food values such as healthiness, naturalness and environmental impact. We also found that respondents&rsquo, beliefs about food values associated with insect-based foods do not depend on the degree of information provided but are probably due to pre-existing prejudices about them.

In the wine sector, experiential marketing is becoming increasingly important since the success of a wine hinges on “experiential” attributes that include hedonic and symbolic values associated with emotions. An aspect not yet fully explored in the scientific literature concerns the extent to which emotions aroused by the environment where wine is consumed are able to influence consumers’ evaluation of wine. To this end, we conducted an economic experiment in Italy in the territory of Mt Etna, Sicily and through a non-hypothetical experimental auction we assessed the effects of 10 emotions related to the environment of Mt Etna on consumers’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Etna wine. The results of this study show that the values of consumers’ WTP for wine are affected by emotions aroused by the experiential environment of Mt Etna.

The suitability of the co-digestion of feedstock-mixtures (by-products and agricultural residues) depends on their ability to produce biogas. In this study, the effects of mixing five feedstocks (citrus pulp, olive pomace, poultry manure, Italian sainfoin silage and opuntia fresh cladodes) on anaerobic digestion for biogas production have been investigated by carrying out biomethane potential (BMP) tests on six different mixing ratios of the selected five biomasses. The BMP test results demonstrated that all the six studied feedstock-mixtures could be potentially used for renewable energy generation by biogas plants. More in detail, two mixing ratios of the studied feedstock-mixtures showed the best biomethane potential of 249.9 and 260.1 Nm3CH4/tVS, respectively. Since this research study made it possible to screen the suitability and technical feasibility of the feedstock-mixtures analysed, the results provide the basis for subsequent pilot scale evaluation of anaerobic digestion in Mediterranean area, where by-products and agricultural residues are profuse and necessary to produce advanced biofuels.

This article examines the potential of biogas and second-generation biomethane (BM) obtainable from Mediterranean feedstock through a process of anaerobic digestion (AD), within the territorial context of Sicily. An estimation of the amount of biomass that is suitable for AD produced in Sicily has been calculated using a methodology that has already been employed for other territorial contexts, and which takes into account the loss of biomass during harvesting and of that used for livestock feed. Therefore, the estimate was made for the net availability of biomass after losses and alternative uses, in order to avoid conflicts between food and feed. The assessment of the biogas potential has enabled the examination of Sicily's potential in the field of bioenergetics that, today, is little exploited. In fact, Sicily is lagging behind compared to the rest of Italy, both in terms of the number of biogas plants and electrical installed capacity. The study has allowed us to estimate a figure of slightly more than 3.9 million tons per year of feedstock (from whey, pomace, stalks and dregs, olive residue, slaughter waste, pulp, cattle slurry, pig slurry, straw from cereal crops, fruit and vegetable scraps, crops in rotation, crops in the spring-summer cycle, long-term weed crops/shrub biomass) that is capable of producing 255 million Nm3 of biogas a year that, net of losses and self-consumption, is enough to produce 408072.1 MWhel/year of electrical energy and 305672.0 MWhter/year of thermal energy. Another alternative could be that of the production of 145 million Nm3 of second-generation BM to be used, according to recent Italian legislation, for the transport sector or for feeding into the national methane grid.

Among the renewable energy sources, the production of biogas from biomass by anaerobic digestion has developed significantly in the last twenty years in Italy, especially in the North. In this field, a new concept proposes the production of biogas in a more sustainable way by a sustainable intensification of crop rotation, use of agro-industrial wastes, and recycling the nutrients of by-products used to produce biogas. Among the by-products used to extract biogas, re-using residual biomass of citrus processing industries, like citrus pulp, has been recently put forward. Given the uncertainty of data relating to biomass quantities, this research aims at filling the gap in the knowledge of the production and yield of citrus pulp for energy uses. Therefore, this study investigates the suitability of using citrus pulp as a possible matrix of the blend needed to feed anaerobic digesters in territorial areas where biogas sector is still developing. This aim is relevant to plan the development of new biogas plants in a sustainable way with regard to environmental protection, and specifically, in terms of reduction of both soil consumption for dedicated energy crop and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions derived from biomasses logistic supply, as well as the re-use of agro-industrial wastes. On this basis, a case study was analysed by using GIS tools and descriptive statistics as well as by investigating the specific regulatory framework. The results of the statistical analyses showed that there is great variability in citrus production for the different citrus fruits because of the species specialisation of some farms and their various production capacities. The results of the GIS analyses highlighted that localisation of the citrus processing areas is highly concentrated in specific geographic areas. Therefore, it would be desirable that the future policies of development of biogas sector, take into account the availability and distribution of agricultural biomasses in the territory. Finally, the regulatory framework was found of crucial importance in supporting or inhibiting the utilisation of the biomass in a specific sector, with regard to the case study considered.

Pest control in pasta processing industries is considered to be one of the activities that can have the greatest impact on the environment. However, the adoption of techniques with a lower environmental impact can result in increased production costs that may discourage their adoption by firms, if not adequately compensated by corresponding increase in revenue. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the economic feasibility of High Heat Treatments, a physical method for pest control in industrial plants that produce pasta in Sicily (Italy). A Benefit-Cost Analysis has been conducted in which the costs refer to the implementation of the High Heat Treatments and the benefits were estimated in terms of the potential increase in the pasta factory's turnover. Increases in turnover derive from the impact of a hypothetical eco-friendly mark, based on the consumer's Willingness To Pay for pasta produced by a production process that reduces environmental impact. The results of the Benefit-Cost Analysis have demonstrated that the premium price that consumers recognise for pasta produced with eco-friendly techniques could ensure an increase in turnover of firms making High Heat Treatments economically feasible for the pasta-making industry. Furthermore, this paper could be a guideline for future research towards an integration of non-hypothetical open-ended choice experiment and the economic analysis tool within Benefit-Cost Analysis.

Heat treatments (HTs) for pest control represent a promising, fast, and non-chemical method to disinfest commodities and structures with a significantly reduced environmental impact compared with the chemical approach. An entomological and economic study has been conducted to determine the technical efficacy and economic feasibility of HT in mills that produce flour and semolina in Sicily (Italy) where, for the first time, this technique has been applied. The results obtained from the entomological analysis demonstrated that this method provided a satisfactory level of control of the following insect species: Sitophilus oryzae (L.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae), Tribolium confusum (Jacquelin du Val) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), Stegobium paniceum (L.) (Coleoptera: Anobiidae), and Ephestia kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). Moreover, using precautionary assumptions in terms of revenue and cost changes resulting from the adoption of HT, the economic analysis showed a good performance of the economic indices making this technique economically feasible for the mills. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of HTs which ensure to Sicilian mills a reduction of environmental impact of production process and the subsequent increase of the competitive position in the agri-food markets of the processed products.

Straw can be valorised through a set of unconventional applications other than the traditional ones being mainly related to livestock breeding. It can be utilised in bioenergy field as renewable feedstock for anaerobic digestion and other biological processes, or as fuel for direct combustion. However, it can also find suitable application in buildings as a multiple-function material (i.e. enveloping and insulation) or for production of other building materials. This paper investigates an Expanded Clay Granulate (ECG) production system in Sicily where straw is used as fuel in the cooking/expansion process, and so contributes both fields: buildings and bioenergy. In this study, the authors carried out a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) according to the subject International Standards, to environmentally validate shifting from hard coal to Durum Wheat (DW) straw as fuel for cooking and expansion of input fresh clay in a rotary kiln line. Study development provided the definition of the system functional unit and boundaries: the former was represented by the production of thermal energy as required for the making of 1 m3 ECG, depending upon whether the kilning phase is fuelled with hard coal or DW straw. Whilst, the latter were designed to include all processes for which differences were recorded due to the change in the fuel utilised. The study documented that, despite the environmental impacts associated with DW straw production, the hard coal fuelled system is far more impacting than that providing straw utilisation, mainly because of the related huge emissions of carbon dioxide.

Biomass is seen as one of the most dominant future renewable energy sources. In detail, agro-industrial by-products represent a cheap, renewable, and abundant feedstock useful for several new products, including biochemical, biomaterials, and above all biogas, which are taking on an ever-increasing role in Italy. In this context, the tomato chain was analysed aiming at estimating the amount of processed tomato and the related waste production as a new suitable resource for producing biofuel as a new frontier within the context of a circular economy. Due the importance of the tomato industry, this research aims at filling gaps in the knowledge of the production and yield of the by-products that are useful as biomass for energy use in those territorial areas where the biomethane sector is still developing. This aim could be relevant for planning the sustainable development of the biomethane sector by reducing both soil consumption for dedicated energy crops and GHG emissions coming from the biomass logistic supply. The achieved results show the localization of territorial areas highly characterized by this kind of biomass. Therefore, it would be desirable that the future policies of development in the biomethane sector consider the availability and the distribution of these suitable biomasses within the territory.

A group of over 600 Italian farmers organized as the Italian Biogas Consortium are redesigning their own farming systems to produce food and bioenergy in a nationwide farm-level movement called Biogasdoneright™. This Feature demonstrates how it is possible to simultaneously increase the economic viability and stability of agriculture by reducing farm input costs and enabling farmers to produce food and fuel more sustainably. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

This paper analyses and estimates the availability of biomass in Sicily, an area characterized by Mediterranean crops, to be subsequently exploited in anaerobic fermentation processes in order to produce thermal or bio-methane electricity. This analysis contains the assessment of biomass quantities potentially available in five categories: waste and by-products from processing, livestock sewage, agricultural residues, waste from agricultural processing residues of marketing and dedicated bioenergy crops. The estimates of raw materials are based on statistics from 2013, by applying a series of parameters obtained from a wide review of current literature and direct research. The quantities of biomass estimated add up to 3,910,649.1 t/year; such quantities demonstrate that Sicily has great potential, finally allowing it to bridge the gap in energy production coming from biomass in comparison to the other regions in the north of Italy. The appraisal of available biomass lays down the conditions for starting studies to estimate the energy obtainable and the assessment of the technical-economic feasibility of the use of remaining biomass available as a source of alternative energy.

Farming systems need to be planned to provide suitable levels of economic profitability and, at the same time, ensure an effective energy use, in order to perform environmentally friendly production strategies. The herein present work aims to assess the efficiency of energy use and economic impacts of the main farming methods (conventional, organic and integrated) of Clementine&rsquo, s crops in Calabria (South Italy), through a combined use of Life Cycle Energy Assessment (LCEA) approach and economic analysis. For this purpose, data were collected from clementine producers by using face-to-face interviews. The results revealed that average energy consumption in the organic farming systems was 72,739 MJ, lower than conventional and integrated systems equal to 95,848 MJ and 94,060 MJ, respectively. This is mainly due to the ban of chemicals. Economic analysis showed that organic farms were more profitable compared with the other farming methods, because of the greater selling price and the EU economic support, reaching an average net profit of 4255 &euro, ha&minus, 1 against 3134 &euro, 1 of integrated farms and 2788 &euro, 1 of conventional ones. The economic efficiency of energy from clementine production was 0.058 &euro, MJ&minus, 1 in the organic farming, higher compared to the other two farming systems equal to 0.033 &euro, 1 on average.

This study focused on applying batch and continuous co-digestion approaches to investigate the effects of a feedstock mixture (FM) constituted by ten Mediterranean feedstocks highly available in the Mediterranean area (i.e., olive pomace, olive mill wastewater, citrus pulp, poultry litter, poultry and cattle manure, whey and cereal straw) on methane production for bioenergy generation. For the same feedstock mixture (FM), two different anaerobic digestion (AD) tests were carried out to evaluate the possible inhibitory effects of some biomasses on the biological process. The first AD test showed a methane yield equal to 229 Nm3CH4/tVS (27% lower than that measured during the batch test). During the second AD test, the specific production was 272 m3CH4/tVS. Both tests showed a similar methane content of methane in the biogas, equal to about 57%. The first AD test showed an inhibition effect of the process: total conversion of the organic matter into biogas was not ended. The second batch test demonstrated that the selected FM could be viable to carry out the co-digestion and could provide a flexible solution to generate advanced biofuels in biogas plants located in the Mediterranean area.

This study was designed and developed to investigate the bread sector, by addressing the environmental issues associated with the supply chain of ‘ Pagnotta del Dittaino’ , a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) durum wheat bread produced in the central-east area of Sicily. In particular, the study discusses the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to highlight the most significant and representative environmental impacts for this bread production system. Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and Carbon Footprint (CF) were also estimated to address the usage of primary-energy sources and the emissions of GreenHouse Gases (GHGs). Cultivation is the system hotspot, mostly because of the production of urea and diammonium phosphate, and of the agricultural activities. Significant contributions arise from ammonia volatilisation and nitrous oxide emission due to mineral fertilisation, affecting ‘Human health’ and ‘Climate Change’ . ‘ Resources’ were impacted by the non-renewable energy use (natural gas and crude oil) which, in turn, is due to the production and transport of fertilisers and to the agricultural activities. Additionally, the CED-analysis highlighted the important contribution made by the use of biomass energy, as a consequence of the energy sequestered by the plant during growth. CO 2 resulted to be the most relevant and representative GHG in this food system. The study contributes to the subject knowledge and literature, and can be of interest for researchers, LCA practitioners, farmers and producers, policy makers and other stakeholders, and could support the implementation of environmental labels.

The efficient use of agricultural wastes and by-products, which essentially transforms waste materials into value-added products, is considered as pivotal for an effective bioeconomy strategy for the rural development. Within this scope, citrus waste management represents a major issue for citrus processors. However, it also represents a potentially unexploited resource for rural sustainable development. This study focuses on analyzing the current management of citrus waste in South Italy, and on identifying the determinants and barriers that may affect an entrepreneur’s choice in the destination of citrus waste. This study investigates the preferences of citrus processors regarding the contract characteristics necessary to take part in a co-investment scheme. Both analyses are preliminary steps in designing an innovative and sustainable citrus by-product supply chain. Results show that the distance between the citrus processors and the citrus by-products plant is one of the main criteria for choosing alternative valorization pathways. Moreover, guaranteed capital, a short duration of the contract, and reduced risk are contract scheme characteristics that improve entrepreneurs’ willingness to co-invest in the development of a citrus waste multifunctional plant. The overall applied approach can be extended to other contexts for designing new and innovative by-product supply chains, thereby enhancing the implementation of bioeconomy strategies.

In this study, we evaluate from the perspective of the theory of commitment costs if the level of farmer understanding about digestate attributes could influence the willingness to pay (WTP) for it. For this purpose, we carried out a research on a sample of 223 Sicilian farmers to correlate their WTP for digestate with a set of eight attributes which usually characterise organic soil conditioners. An experimental design was set up so that participants were given different waiting times to decide on their WTP and different levels of information on the attributes of organic soil conditioners. The results highlight a positive WTP, but farmers are strongly influenced by how much information is available on digestate. Without it, farmers’ WTP decreases drastically probably due to phenomena correlated to what economic theory calls commitment costs.