Search

This paper discusses contractual features to manage and coordinate a hypothetical bio-energy supply chain. The present study focuses on farmers operating in two Regions of Italy, namely Sicily and Campania, somewhat representative of areas with high potential of investments in new bioenergy supply value chain. Farmers were asked to choose whether to participate or not in a collective investment regulated by contract schemes. Monetary trade-offs were then computed among contract attributes. A specific questionnaire was submitted to a sample of farmers selected on the basis of their potential capability of investments. A stated preference modelling approach was implemented so that farmers could make a choice between alternative contracts reporting varying attribute levels. If energy-producing companies are paying attention to biofuel production aiming at a diversification of their activities, results show that farmers' participation needs to be managed through contracts that take care of investment length, warranty on investment return, and risk management.

The concept of social entrepreneurship is growing rapidly and attracting increased attention from research institutions and business schools around the world to understand how these satisfy the needs of communities, those private and public institutions are not adequately addressing. Social entrepreneurship, identified as activity with a social objective, was used in this study as a conceptual tool to empirically examine farmer’s participation in AFNs. Using a behavioural approach, we conducted a survey in Sicily, Italy, using a questionnaire with modified items from the Edinburgh Study of Decision Making on Farms. From the results emerges that around 64% of the farmers participating in AFNs is driven by social entrepreneurial dimension., Italian Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol 71 No 1 (2016): Vol 71, No 1 (Suppl.) (2016)

Depletion of natural resources have become key issues on the European policy agenda. Bottom-up measures have emerged in several countries with a view to promoting awareness campaigns and practical actions with respect to environmental sustainability. All this has led to the creation of new strategies in the policies for consumption, redefining a new alternative geography of food and new opportunities for small enterprises excluded from globalization (Whatmore and Thorne, 1997; Miele, 1999; Murdoch e Miele, 1999; Murdoch et al., 2000). In the new emerging geography of food, the reincorporation of production processes and local consumption are spreading quickly assuming different forms such as the so-called Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) (Abatekassa and Peterson, 2011) or the much less analyzed Food Community Networks (FCNs) (Pascucci et al., 2013). FCNs differentiate from AFNs as in these experiences participants share both the benefits and cover expenses of the organization (Caracciolo and Lombardi, 2012). A common feature of the different forms of FCNs is an interesting relational structure that governs market transactions. Within FCNs, Italian Solidarity Purchase Groups (SPGs) are among the most representative relational forms with the objective to promote sustainable consumption (Brunori et al., 2011; Graziano and Forno, 2012; Migliore et al., 2013). The phenomenon of SPGs is continuously growing in Italy: in 2013, there were 974 active groups , which means that in the two last years they have increased by 22% and by 64% if compared to 2007 when the phenomenon began to spread more intensely. The spread of SPGs is mainly due to new and confirmed policies for consumption testing new social paradigms aimed at promoting sustainable development in rural areas through active reorganizing of the agriculture and food industry (Cembalo et al., 2013; Migliore et al., 2012; Schifani and Migliore, 2011; Brunori and Rossi, 2000). By their very nature, SPGs are activated by enthusiastic individuals who, in an entirely voluntary manner, offer their time and resources to start up collective action initiatives at the local level. As a result, there is a set of rules deriving from complex relational structures competing to define a - self-organized collective action for sustainable consumption. The rules within SPGs differ from the mainstream as they experiment with new social paradigms and innovation system models (Cembalo et al, 2013; Brunori, 2000, 2011). At the local level, in fact, SPGs are often at the center of a much more complex network structure which involves actors that share an explicit ambitions of territorial governance, similar to what happens in the Anglo-Saxon movement of Transition Towns (Grasseni, 2013). In other words, these networks represent the typical ‘grassroots innovations’ (Seyfang & Smith, 2006), in which individual actors and organizations experiment with new solutions to common problems. These forms of FCNs represent particularly important cases because they allow for the construction and consolidation of relations of reciprocity which favor the management of natural resources at local levels with satisfactory long-term outcomes (Migliore et al., 2013). However, while research conducted on SPGs has shown that these groups represent important sources of social innovation capable of suggesting effective solutions to the problems of the unsustainability of the agro-industrial system, to date it is still not clear which actors and roles within the network influence the promotion of long-term sustainable consumption and production. To develop a more inclusive view of how such influences are established within the network, this work draws on the evolutionary theory of collective action (Ostrom, 2000, 2010). In these studies, the conditions which affect the likelihood of individuals bringing about collective actions to overcome social dilemmas in the management of resources used in common are analyzed. Among these conditions, the way in which the individuals are linked via a network has proven very important in triggering collective action. In fact, it is a commonly held opinion that individuals who are linked in a network are more likely to contribute each other’s welfare (Granovetter, 1973; Ostrom, 2010). The aim of this study is to understand how clusters of economic actors organized in different ways (aggregations of consumers and of producers, environmental associations, etc.) tend to influence the promotion of sustainable consumption and production. The hypothesis behind the present study is in fact that the capacity of an SPGs to diffuse and produce long-term collective actions is the result of the strategies of specific actors in possession of relational capital (quality and amount of relations). More precisely, it is presumed that bigger the number of relationships that each actor or group of actors establishes within the network, major is the capability of an actor to affect collective action. Following this line of reasoning, it is possible to identify the key actors and their role within the collective action. With this in mind, the article takes a relational approach and analyzes in detail the system of relations between one specific SPG called Gasualmente (placed in Palermo City), which constitutes one of the most active SPGs in Sicily (Southern Italy), and other actors (both individual and collective actors). Social initiatives like SPG promoting solidary consumption of local food are based on a system of relations where movements of a single actor are conditioned by its position and the number of mutual ties it is able to form. Therefore, it is important to identify the social actors with a strategic role, so those that can influence more the collective decision making process and the transmission of information within the social network. In order to study social relations, we have used in this paper Social Network Analysis (SNA). It is an analysis technique identifying and analyzing relations among the members of a network (individuals and/or associations) in order to discover schemes depicting relational structures (Hannemann e Riddle, 2005). In other words, Social Network Analysis (SNA) permits to analyze and visualize social relations among actors, groups, associations and other actors involved in the exchange of goods, information and knowledge. (Wasserman S., Faust, K., 1994). By applying Social Network Analysis, we have identified what role different participants of the network play, that is who can influence the long time collective action. The analysis of structural and relational traits of Gasualmente network, done by applying a specific set of ego-network analysis indexes, has shown that Gasualmente consumers structure many relationships with various actors, highly dependent on each other which is due to the fact that they share the same values, direct relations and trust each other. It favors a strong sense of community, which is a typical trait of actors promoting ethical and solidary economy. More precisely there are farmers, cultural and environmental associations and other institutional actors. Our case study is a typical example of a self-governing common resources that guarantees a sustainable development and permits to obtain significant and lasting outcomes. It also confirms that a better and more sustainable management of common resources can be achieved when they are used by involving economic actors that are interdependent and when the relational capital of every network can contribute to the sustainable development.

The aims of the present study was to assess the economic sustainability of microalgae cultivation in PBRs, ascertain in what conditions of productivity and price it is possible to achieve similar results to those of the irst case, and assess the impact that the results of plant management could have on the balance sheets of farms which may have an interest in expanding their production. Our results show shows that, while prospects are encouraging, there is a need to develop structured supply chains able to confer greater stability to the market and to ensure a higher degree of certainty to stakeholders.

Reciprocal interactions among farmers and consumers can be seen as the central point of market exchanges in Civic Agriculture (CAs). This work exploits the concept of social embeddedness as a conceptual tool for describing some phenomena related to CA. Social embeddedness concept might help to understand how consumers and producers behave in the market beyond the paradigm of neoclassical economics theory. The objective of this study is to empirically evaluate which attitudes may influence farmers decision to participate to several types of CAs. Our results confirm the strong role of social embeddedness phenomenon in those forms of CAs characterized by personal relations between farmers and consumers: A greater presence of community relations implies a greater role of social embeddedness on farmers decision.

The alternative food network, especially GAS (Solidarity Purchase Groups), are considered like laboratories where testing new models of innovation system (new social paradigms). In this paper is focused the theory of transitions management. With the help of Social Network Analysis, we tried to understand the network between GAS and associations both of them involved in the processes of food production and consumption, aimed at promoting sustainable development in Sicily.

Why are consumers increasingly joining farmers to co-produce and transact sustainable foods world-wide? May these networks be a new tool to promote sustainable practices? As stated by Sandler (2010): “Longitudinal collective action environmental problems are likely to be effectively addressed only by an enormous number of individuals each making a nearly insignificant contribution to resolving them”. Consumers-farmers networks may serve this scope by inducing individual actors to change their preferences towards sustainable products. However participation in these networks is still not well understood. On one hand new institutional economics explains consumers joining farmers in creating a network as a choice of the “most cost-economizing” governance structure to carry out a transaction where credence attributes are involved (i.e. sustainable-produced foodstuff). Thus a credence food is transacted through a consumers-farmers network if this governance structure can ensure the minimization of the transaction costs. However the way different (transactional) contexts can influence the change of consumers perceptions and preferences for credence foods is still not completely addressed. On the other hand behavioral economics underlines the role of social and psychological motivations such as altruism and fairness, to describe this type of decision making process. Still a clear link between transaction costs, motivations and the choice context to describe consumers participation in these networks is not completely understood and analysed. In this paper we use both new institutional and behavioural economics arguments to conceptualize the consumers participation in this new type of governance structures, which we have defined as food community network (FCN). More specifically we have investigated an Italian fast-spreading type of FCN named Solidarity Purchase Group . GAS are associations of consumers whose behavior is characterized by a strong philosophical and ethical agreement in which the territorial, economic and social ties between the individuals involved in it, tend to evolve into networks of participative economy. The present study, which is part of a wider study financed by the Sicilian Regional Authority, analyses the GAS presence in Sicily (a region in Southern Italy), where 32 active GAS are present, representing an estimated number of 1,200 families. Although this phenomenon is still marginal and limited to recent years, it can be particularly interesting because of its rapid proliferation. Attention to this type of participative consumerism is warranted for two reasons: firstly, because of its progressive expansion into rural areas, far from the main cities where the phenomenon originated, and secondly, because of its potential impact on the sustainability of food production in this region. To evaluate the potential impact of this phenomenon in Sicily a sample of involved consumers has been interviewed. This sample included some 200 individuals (those in the household in charge of buying) belonging to the main GAS operating in Sicily. This group represents 946 consumers. More specifically a survey was developed to investigate consumers participation in this GAS. In the questionnaire three main issues have been investigated: transaction costs, motivations and social preferences (i.e. altruism and trust), and choice context features as driving factors of consumers participation. Moreover we controlled for i) attitudes towards environmental protection and nature, industrial food production, technological progress, animal welfare, food and environment; ii) consumption frequencies and type of purchased products (i.e. organic, other certified products, conventional products, environmental friendly products and not certified products); and iii) socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents, including food-related lifestyle (FRL). The transaction-costs-related, motivational and choice-context-related variables have used to analyse different level of participation, comparing results from a conditional logit model with a latent-class one. Results indicate different factors affecting participation and profiles of GAS participants, which we can classify as follow: environmentalism and ecological sensitivity (1); gourmet, innovations and creativity (2); cultural patriotism and ethnocentrism (3); animal welfarism (4); cost and price awareness (5); belief in food traditionalism and purity of cuisine (6). Based on these results policy implications have been drawn to promote public support of GAS and food community networks both in the Italian and European contexts.

New consumption habits stand out against the idea of a rational consumer, which is aimed at maximizing utility according to budget constraint. Presently, people have the tendency to behave differently according to various purchase opportunities; a significant role is played by both ethical sides and selfless motivations. These new trends fall within the context of a new social paradigm that foresees postmodern society’s rise. Consumers have the tendency to use the market as an arena in which political, ethical and environmental issues may arise, starting a new trend of an alternative consumption called “political consumerism”. In this paper we’ll try to understand how new consumption habits mirror features of postmodern society, starting with research work on specialized fairs of organic food in Sicily.