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New Medit - Vol. 19 N. 1 (2020) - Bologna University Press

Rivista

New Medit, Economia e Finanza

New Medit - Vol. 19 N. 1 (2020)

Mediterranean Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Environment

Mtimet, Souissi and Mhamdi assess consumers’ awareness and consumption of organ- ic food products in Tunisia. The results of survey indicate that respondents’ perceptions towards organic food are positive. However, the proportion of consumers who purchase organic food on a regular basis is quite low (16%). Improving availability and access to organic products through the integration in mainstream sales channels and lower price premiums will help narrowing the gap between the intention to purchase organic products and the actual purchase.

Markou et al. analyse the unfair trading practices (UTP) existing in the Cypriot food supply chain. They assess, through a quantitative survey of a representative sample of busi- nesses, their impact on the involved stakeholders and provide guidelines that will assist the transposition of EU relevant Directive to the national l…aw. According to the study analysis, two-thirds of the overall sample agrees that the Cyprus B2B food supply chain is affected by UTPs with a different frequency of occurrence. UTPs are imposed not only by strong players in the food supply chain, but also by individual crop/livestock farmers. To reinforce the role and the bargaining power of small businesses the authors suggest the development of efficient producers’ organizations, short food supply chains, interbranch organizations and strategic partnerships.

As assessment of the relationship between employment intensity and sectoral output growth in Egypt and Jordan has been analysed by Zaki, Alshyab and Seleem. Using panel data for 10 sectors over the period 1983-2010 for two Middle Eastern countries the authors examine whether economic growth was jobless or has created more jobs. Our main find- ings show that while manufacturing is the most important sector that creates jobs in Egypt, services are more important in Jordan. A more detailed look at the decomposition analysis shows that the contribution of employment growth to value-added was higher than that of labor productivity.

Amog the different factors influence the Portuguese consumer behaviour the authors Bernabéu et al. focus on the Ethnocentric tendencies, understood as consumers’ positive attitudes towards goods produced in their own region rather than those from other regions. Results show that Portuguese olive oil consumers exhibit a strong ethnocentric tendency but the price attribute is also key. Nonetheless, there exists a less ethnocentric segment, on which foreign business strategy can be focused. On this segment, consumers attach lower relative importance to the price and higher relative importance to differentiated-quality parameters: oil type (extra virgin), bottle (glass) and production system (organic).

The relevance of women in agriculture has been deeply recognized in recent literature, even though in terms of family farming labour and not in terms of contribution to decision making. Adinolfi, Capitanio, De Rosa and Vecchio explore eventual gender gaps and per- formances in Italian farms. The results confirm gender gaps related to farm performance, networking, diversification strategies and access to rural policies, by enlightening diverse paths of development in rural enterprises on the basis of explanatory variables.

The paper of Sans and Boizot-Szantai seeks to characterize the purchasing behavior of households that buy organic meat products in France (fresh and frozen meat and processed meat products), and their sociodemographic characteristics by using panel data. The results tend to show that the use of self-reporting leads to an overestimation of the true weight of organic meat products in households’ home consumption. The authors suggest a number of strategic recommendations for developing the organic meat market. The first is to reduce the effort required of potential purchasers to buy the products by making them more readily accessible (development of points of sale, more extensive distribution channels). The sec- ond is to highlight credence attributes when promoting organic meat.

Natália Barbosa investigates the effects of human capital and managerial capabilities on growth of Portuguese farming firms during 2003-2007. Looking at other factors be- side size, the results suggest that managerial capabilities and human capital have power to shape farming firms’ growth. This finding suggests that managerial capabilities allowed by a specific legal business format have a positive payoff, reckoned by higher growth. On the human capital side, the estimates reveal that younger and top educated employees promote farming firm growth. The empirical findings are relevant for agricultural policies and have implications upon farming sector restructuring and economic development in the Portu- guese farming system.

Iofrida et al. use the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and social Life Cycle Assessment (sLCA) as evaluation tools to compare the socio-economic impacts of organic and conventional farming systems of the Italian olive growing. Results showed a similar level of economic profitability in both scenarios, due to the public subsidies for organic farming, which bal- anced higher production costs. From a social point of view, some differences have been highlighted: organic farming would be suitable not only to increase incomes but also to improve the occupational health of the people involved.

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Disciplina

Economia e Finanza

Argomento

Scienze e tecnologie agro-alimentari

Anno

2020

Lingua

Inglese

ISBN

9788869235566

ISBN online

9788869235566

doi

10.30682/nm2001

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