IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/afrpps/afr-07-2020-0107.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial sustainability in Italian farms: an analysis of the FADN sample

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriele Dono
  • Rebecca Buttinelli
  • Raffaele Cortignani

Abstract

Purpose - The paper examines the factors that influence the production of cash flows in a sample of Italian farm accountancy data network (FADN) farms to generate information useful for calibrating policies to support farmers' investments. Design/methodology/approach - An econometric analysis on the sample estimates the influence of structural, economic, commercial and financial variables on CAFFE, i.e. the cash flow that includes the payments to the farmer's resources and the free cash flow on equity (FCFE). The econometric problem of endogeneity is treated by adopting the Hausman test to choose between fixed and random effects models. The results for Italian agriculture and its types of farming (TFs) are examined based on the FCFE/capital depreciation ratio, where FCFE subtracts from CAFFE the opportunity cost payments to the farmer's resources. This ratio identifies TFs with problems of sustainability of the production system. Findings - The results show that increasing the productive dimension, in particular the endowment of farmland and working capital, is still essential to stimulate the production of cash flows of Italian agriculture. Without this growth, increasing the depreciable capital base is ineffective. FCFE does not compensate for depreciation in several TFs, which in various cases could also improve by improving economic efficiency and commercial position. Research limitations/implications - Assessing the factors that most influence cash flows can help to better calibrate rural development measures to the territories and farming types that most need public support. Our analysis procedure can be applied to all production systems equipped with farm accounting networks; however, the criteria for rewarding farmer resources and calculating the replacement value of agricultural capital need to be better discussed. Originality/value - The specification of rural development policies rarely takes into account the financial sustainability conditions of farms, as well as the factors that determine them, in defining the support parameters and the selection criteria for funding. Our approach, based on the analysis of FADN data, considers these aspects and provides ideas for better calibrating public support for investments among agricultural territories, sectors and types of farms.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriele Dono & Rebecca Buttinelli & Raffaele Cortignani, 2021. "Financial sustainability in Italian farms: an analysis of the FADN sample," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 81(5), pages 719-745, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:afrpps:afr-07-2020-0107
    DOI: 10.1108/AFR-07-2020-0107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AFR-07-2020-0107/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AFR-07-2020-0107/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/AFR-07-2020-0107?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dario Macaluso & Francesco Licciardo & Katya Carbone, 2024. "Farming of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in Italy: Structural Features and Economic Results," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-20, January.
    2. Manal Hamam & Daniela Spina & Roberta Selvaggi & Gabriella Vindigni & Gioacchino Pappalardo & Mario D'Amico & Gaetano Chinnici, 2023. "Financial sustainability in agri-food supply chains: A system approach," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 25(2), pages 135-154.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:afrpps:afr-07-2020-0107. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.