IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i14p11403-d1200235.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Evolution of Multifunctional Agriculture in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Concetta Cardillo

    (Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy, CREA—Council for Research in Agriculture and Economics Agricultural Analysis, 00198 Rome, Italy)

  • Orlando Cimino

    (Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy, CREA—Council for Research in Agriculture and Economics Agricultural Analysis, 00198 Rome, Italy)

  • Marcello De Rosa

    (Department of Economics and Law, Università Degli Studi di Cassino e Del Lazio Meridionale, Località Folcara, 03043 Cassino, Italy)

  • Martina Francescone

    (Department of Economics and Law, Università Degli Studi di Cassino e Del Lazio Meridionale, Località Folcara, 03043 Cassino, Italy)

Abstract

This study dealt with multifunctional farming, which is meant as a dynamic strategy that is carried out by Italian farms. The path alongside the multifunctional paradigm is carried out through both supply chain and territorial strategies, which deserve more attention. These strategies reinforce sustainable business models characterized by the presence of both deepening and broadening strategies. The first ones are centered around product differentiation and valorization through geographical indications, organic farming, etc. Broadening strategies are implemented through new on-farm activities, such as agritourism, and other gainful activities carried out at the farm level. Set against this background, the article discusses the evolution of farms according to the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) database by putting forward an empirical analysis, which considered the evolution of farm typologies oriented toward multifunctionality in the last decade. The analysis underlined the positive dynamics and the evolution of farms adhering to the multifunctional paradigm. Moreover, as evidenced in the econometric analysis, the adoption of multifunctional farming activities provided a sound contribution to income formation. This addressed some policy issues that were identified at the beginning of the new programming period for rural development of the EU and their resolution aims to reinforce the virtuous trajectory toward multifunctional farming.

Suggested Citation

  • Concetta Cardillo & Orlando Cimino & Marcello De Rosa & Martina Francescone, 2023. "The Evolution of Multifunctional Agriculture in Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11403-:d:1200235
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11403/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11403/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paola Gullino & Luca Battisti & Federica Larcher, 2018. "Linking Multifunctionality and Sustainability for Valuing Peri-Urban Farming: A Case Study in the Turin Metropolitan Area (Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-18, May.
    2. Silvia Sivini & Annamaria Vitale, 2023. "Multifunctional and Agroecological Agriculture as Pathways of Generational Renewal in Italian Rural Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-17, March.
    3. Roberta Moruzzo & Giulia Granai & Caterina De Benedictis & Morgana Galardi & Vincenzina Colosimo & Jacopo Sforzi & Francesco Di Iacovo, 2022. "The Development of Sustainable Social Farming in Italy: A Case Studies Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-17, November.
    4. Baissa, Daniel K. & Rainey, Carlisle, 2020. "When BLUE is not best: non-normal errors and the linear model," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 136-148, January.
    5. Somayeh Tohidyan Far & Kurosh Rezaei-Moghaddam, 2019. "Multifunctional agriculture: an approach for entrepreneurship development of agricultural sector," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, December.
    6. Geels, Frank W. & Schot, Johan, 2007. "Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 399-417, April.
    7. Massimo Rovai & Maria Andreoli, 2016. "Combining Multifunctionality and Ecosystem Services into a Win-Win Solution. The Case Study of the Serchio River Basin (Tuscany—Italy)," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-25, September.
    8. Povellato, Andrea & Bodini, Antonella & Longhitano, Davide & Scardera, Alfonso, 2012. "Assessing farm sustainability. An application with the Italian FADN sample," 2012 First Congress, June 4-5, 2012, Trento, Italy 124381, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    9. Giuseppe Gargano & Francesco Licciardo & Milena Verrascina & Barbara Zanetti, 2021. "The Agroecological Approach as a Model for Multifunctional Agriculture and Farming towards the European Green Deal 2030—Some Evidence from the Italian Experience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, February.
    10. Kirill A. Zhichkin & Vladimir V. Nosov & Lyudmila N. Zhichkina & Artur A. Gubadullin, 2022. "The Theory of Agriculture Multifunctionality on the Example of Private Households," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, November.
    11. Adele Coppola & Alfonso Scardera & Mario Amato & Fabio Verneau, 2020. "Income Levels and Farm Economic Viability in Italian Farms: An Analysis of FADN Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-18, June.
    12. Mehrabi, Zia & Delzeit, Ruth & Ignaciuk, Adriana & Levers, Christian & Braich, Ginni & Bajaj, Kushank & Amo-Aidoo, Araba & Anderson, Weston & Balgah, Roland A. & Benton, Tim G. & Chari, Martin M. & El, 2022. "Research priorities for global food security under extreme events," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 5(7), pages 756-766.
    13. Lucia Briamonte & Luca Cesaro & Alfonso Scardera, 2021. "Guest Editorial. Current use and new perspectives for the Farm Accountancy Data Network," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 23(3), pages 1-5.
    14. Jostein Vik & Gerard Mcelwee, 2011. "Diversification and the Entrepreneurial Motivations of Farmers in Norway," Journal of Small Business Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(3), pages 390-410, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Song, Bingjie & Robinson, Guy M. & Bardsley, Douglas K. & Xue, Yanlong & Wang, Bing, 2023. "Multifunctional agriculture in a peri-urban fringe: Chinese farmers’ responses to shifts in policy and changing socio-economic conditions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    2. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Claudio Liberati & Concetta Cardillo & Antonella Di Fonzo, 2021. "Sustainability and competitiveness in farms: An evidence of Lazio region agriculture through FADN data analysis," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 23(3), pages 1-22.
    2. Orlando Cimino & Marco Vassallo & Roberto Henke & Francesco Vanni, 2021. "Income Diversification Strategies of Italian Peri-Urban Farms: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-23, July.
    3. Marcel Bednarz & Tom Broekel, 2020. "Pulled or pushed? The spatial diffusion of wind energy between local demand and supply," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(4), pages 893-916.
    4. Dora Isabel Rodrigues Ferreira & José-Manuel Sánchez-Martín, 2022. "Agricultural Landscapes as a Basis for Promoting Agritourism in Cross-Border Iberian Regions," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-35, May.
    5. Weking, Jörg & Desouza, Kevin C. & Fielt, Erwin & Kowalkiewicz, Marek, 2023. "Metaverse-enabled entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    6. Hirt, Léon F. & Sahakian, Marlyne & Trutnevyte, Evelina, 2022. "What subnational imaginaries for solar PV? The case of the Swiss energy transition," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. Wiegand, Julia, 2017. "Dezentrale Stromerzeugung als Chance zur Stärkung der Energie-Resilienz: Eine qualitative Analyse kommunaler Strategien im Raum Unna," Wuppertaler Studienarbeiten zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, volume 11, number 11.
    8. Silvia Saravia-Matus & T. S. Amjath-Babu & Sreejith Aravindakshan & Stefan Sieber & Jimmy A. Saravia & Sergio Gomez y Paloma, 2021. "Can Enhancing Efficiency Promote the Economic Viability of Smallholder Farmers? A Case of Sierra Leone," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    9. Capellán-Pérez, Iñigo & Campos-Celador, Álvaro & Terés-Zubiaga, Jon, 2018. "Renewable Energy Cooperatives as an instrument towards the energy transition in Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 215-229.
    10. Funcke, Simon & Bauknecht, Dierk, 2016. "Typology of centralised and decentralised visions for electricity infrastructure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-74.
    11. Bessi, Alessandro & Guidolin, Mariangela & Manfredi, Piero, 2021. "The role of gas on future perspectives of renewable energy diffusion: Bridging technology or lock-in?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    12. Torres-Avila, Angelica & Aguilar-Ávila, Jorge & Santoyo-Cortés, Vinicio Horacio & Martínez-González, Enrique Genaro & Aguilar-Gallegos, Norman, 2022. "Innovation in the pineapple value chain in Mexico: Explaining the global adoption process of the MD-2 hybrid," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. Hellsmark, Hans & Hansen, Teis, 2020. "A new dawn for (oil) incumbents within the bioeconomy? Trade-offs and lessons for policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    14. Eleftheria Vasileiadou & Boukje Huijben & Rob Raven, 2014. "Crowdfunding niches? Exploring the potential of crowdfunding for financing renewable energy niches in the Netherlands," Working Papers 14-11, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies, revised Nov 2014.
    15. Marianne Ryghaug & Michael Ornetzeder & Tomas Moe Skjølsvold & William Throndsen, 2019. "The Role of Experiments and Demonstration Projects in Efforts of Upscaling: An Analysis of Two Projects Attempting to Reconfigure Production and Consumption in Energy and Mobility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-15, October.
    16. van Wijk, Michel & van Bueren, Ellen & te Brömmelstroet, Marco, 2014. "Governing structures for airport regions: Learning from the rise and fall of the ‘Bestuursforum’ in the Schiphol airport region," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 139-150.
    17. Pradeep Racherla & Munir Mandviwalla, 2013. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multilevel Sociotechnical Framework," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 709-730, September.
    18. Merrie, Andrew & Olsson, Per, 2014. "An innovation and agency perspective on the emergence and spread of Marine Spatial Planning," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 366-374.
    19. Barbanente, Angela & Grassini, Laura, 2022. "Fostering transitions in landscape policies: A multi-level perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    20. Annika Styczynski & Jedamiah Wolf & Somdatta Tah & Arnab Bose, 2014. "When decision-making processes fail: an argument for robust climate adaptation planning in the face of uncertainty," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 478-491, December.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11403-:d:1200235. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.