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Accurate commodity price forecasts are crucial for stakeholders in agricultural supply chains. They support informed marketing decisions, risk management, and investment strategies. Machine learning methods have significant potential to provide accurate forecasts by maximizing out-of-sample accuracy. However, their inherent complexity makes it challenging to understand the appropriate data pre-processing steps to ensure proper functionality. This study compares the forecasting performance of Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM-RNNs) with classical econometric time series models for corn futures prices. The study considers various combinations of data pre-processing techniques, variable clusters, and forecast horizons. Our results indicate that LSTM-RNNs consistently outperform classical methods, particularly for longer forecast horizons. In particular, our findings demonstrate that LSTM-RNNs are capable of automatically handling structural breaks, resulting in more accurate forecasts when trained on datasets that include such shocks. However, in our setting, LSTM-RNNs struggle to deal with seasonality and trend components, necessitating specific data pre-processing procedures for their removal.

La distribuzione alimentare In Lombardia

La sostenibilità dell'agricoltura lombarda

La distribuzione alimentare in Emilia-Romagna

The impact of the European Union common agricultural policy direct payments on land prices has received substantial attention in recent years, leading to heterogeneous evidence of capitalisation for both coupled and decoupled payments. In this paper, we provide an extensive review of the empirical works addressing this issue econometrically and compare their results through a Bayesian meta-regression model, focussing on the impact of decoupling and its implementation schemes. We find that the introduction of decoupled payments increased the capitalisation rate, although the extent of this increment hinges on the implementation scheme adopted by the member state.

The Common Agricultural Policy reform 2013–2020 has conditioned 30 per cent of the direct payments to greening requirements. Our study investigates whether one of these requirements, the ecological focus area (EFA) obligation, has led to environmental improvements while preserving farms’ economic sustainability. We apply a regression discontinuity design approach on a sample of Italian arable crop farms. Our results suggest that the EFA requirement has no significant effects on farms’ application of fertilisers, pesticide expenditure, crop diversification or economic performance. However, farmers reacted to the EFA requirement by changing their crop mix, mostly by increasing their share of leguminous crops.

The Common Agricultural Policy reform 2013-2020 has conditioned 30 per cent of the direct payments to greening requirements. Our study investigates whether one of these requirements, the ecological focus area (EFA) obligation, has led to environmental improvements while preserving farms' economic sustainability. We apply a regression discontinuity design approach on a sample of Italian arable crop farms. Our results suggest that the EFA requirement has no significant effects on farms' application of fertilisers, pesticide expenditure, crop diversification or economic performance. However, farmers reacted to the EFA requirement by changing their crop mix, mostly by increasing their share of leguminous crops.

The recreational value of mountain areas is an important non-market service provided by forest ecosystems. However, as with other public goods, the lack of a market typically leads to underprovision. In this study, we combine the travel cost and the contingent behaviour methods to evaluate the recreational value of the Western part of the Apennines around Parma (Italy), a free-access area of great natural beauty which also qualifies as a marginal area, under current and hypothetical conditions. Using the data collected through an online survey of 113 visitors of the area and the estimated parameters from a truncated negative binomial regression, we find that the recreational value of the site under current conditions is equal to 187 euro per visitor per year, corresponding to an overall value of 374,340 euro for all the hikers visiting the area each year. Moreover, the provision of additional services such as the creation of wellbeing trails may significantly increase the value of the site (+32.8%). The results from this analysis suggest that policymakers may wish to invest in natural resources to support the economic development of marginal areas.

Sviluppo sostenibile in Lombardia: il ruolo dell'agricoltura

Policies in the agricultural and rural sectors are of key importance in shaping their sustainable development. These policies are changing from market-based policies to policies that aim to influence farmers’ decision-making. Thus, the scientific literature supporting evidence-based policy-making must develop models that simulate individual decision-making (IDM) by farmers. This study aims to understand key policy objectives, related policy questions and benchmark scenarios relevant to the European agricultural sector to define the research agenda for a suite of IDM models. This research goal has been addressed following a five-step process that involved different research tools and heterogeneous actors, including key stakeholders. Results suggest that environmental policy objectives are the most relevant for European agriculture in the coming decades. Thus, the scenario modelling exercise should focus mainly on the agri-environmental policies’ impacts while properly considering the potential trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives.

L’osservazione e l’analisi dei comportamenti di consumo degli immigrati e il confronto con quelli della popolazione ospite rappresentano un riferimento importante per comprendere il livello di integrazione degli immigrati e di reciproca acculturation, inteso come il processo di cambiamento e di avvicinamento culturale e psicologico generato da un contatto duraturo con comunità appartenenti a culture differenti. Questo libro sintetizza i risultati di un progetto di ricerca promosso dall’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano che ha voluto indagare i comportamenti d’acquisto e di consumo dei nuovi consumatori di origine straniera. Il focus della ricerca si è concentrato sulla popola-zione stabilmente residente in Italia e non sugli aspetti emergenziali del fenomeno migratorio. La ricerca si è orientata sui consumi riferiti a una pluralità di settori (prodotti alimentari, abbigliamento e moda, prodotti tecnologici, servizi commerciali, servizi sanitari e consumi culturali) e, sul lato dell’offerta, sulle politiche delle imprese rivolte al target degli immigrati e sulle attività imprenditoriali svolte dalle popolazioni immigrate. L’analisi comparativa dei diversi mercati sui quali si è concentrata la ricerca empirica ha fatto emergere alcune convergenze degli atteggiamenti in particolare delle seconde generazioni, la relazione significativa “consumi-generazione di appartenenza”, il ruolo della provenienza geografica e dell’identità di origine nel processo di acquisto e consumo. Dalla ricerca emerge con chiarezza che i consumi possono effettivamente rappresentare un momento fondamentale di contatto, di acculturazione e di integrazione nel rapporto tra popolazione immigrata e autoctona. Tali fattori sono affiancati da alcune sfide sia per la formulazione delle strategie aziendali, sia per il contesto istituzionale in termini di policy

La distribuzione alimentare al dettaglio in Emilia-Romagna

La distribuzione alimentare al dettaglio in Lombardia

This paper presents analyses of the economic and environmental impact of relevant phosphorus management policy scenarios, using representative pig and poultry farms in the Emilia-Romagna region (Po River basin, Italy) and Niedersachsen region (Ems River basin, Germany) as case studies. The analysis was done by using a farm-level linear programming bioeconomic model developed for different farm and animal types-sows, fattening pigs, laying hens and broilers. The baseline for the assessed scenarios involved farms situated within the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs) and therefore, were subject to indirect phosphorus fertilization limitations via the Nitrates Directive (ND). The analyzed phosphorus management policy scenarios included the implementation of two different balances of 8.7 kg and 4.35 kg of P per ha per year, inspired by the German Fertilizer Ordinance for phosphorus fertilization implemented in 2007 and later updated from 2017 up to 2023, respectively. We also included a more rigorous zero P balance scenario. The results of the scenario simulations, based on model assumptions, reveal that the introduction of direct phosphorus management policies for pig and poultry farms situated in high livestock dense regions can be done without causing any significant impact on farm gross margin (around 2% of reduction) for both regions and all four animal types, except for sows and broiler production in the Ems River Basin (up to 12% of reduction). Selected technologies and methods, inspired by current practices, have been analyzed for their cost efficiency to achieve the target P balance of the individual scenarios, including export of slurry out of the farm or export of separation solids. Results also highlight that the Nitrates Directive alone is not enough to handle the P issue in monogastric livestock farms.

La distribuzione alimentare al dettaglio in Lombardia nel 2021

I consumi alimentari sostenibili

Farm structure in Italy is very fragmented, with the average farm size equal to 9.5 ha in 2016. Land regulations that have been introduced typically aim to increase the average farm size, by consolidating the land property through markets (by farmers), by liberalising land rental contracts and by pre-emptive rights on land acquisition.

I consumi alimentari in Italia stanno cambiando in modo molto rilevante, sia in termini di composizione media della spesa alimentare, sia in termini di specifici prodotti consumati. I driver del cambiamento dei consumi alimentari sono legati sia a importanti fenomeni socio-demografici che caratterizzano la società italiana (invecchiamento della popolazione, immigrazione, nuove dinamiche famigliari, nuovi modalità di gestione del lavoro e del tempo libero...), sia alle nuove esigenze che i consumatori manifestano nei confronti del cibo. Tra questi nuovi trend, giocano un ruolo fondamentale la crescente consapevolezza del rapporto tra alimentazione e salute e la sostenibilità dei comportamenti di consumo. In questo contesto, il presente lavoro analizza i dati principali relativi all’andamento della domanda alimentare in Italia, utilizzando sia le fonti ufficiali ISTAT che i dati provenienti dalle più importanti società di ricerche di mercato. In particolare, il lavoro cerca di analizzare in dettaglio le caratteristiche dei nuovi trend di consumo (prodotti, volumi e trend di crescita), soffermandosi su alcuni casi studio. Il lavoro si conclude con alcune considerazioni riguardanti il ruolo delle politiche in questa specifica area di applicazione.