Suchergebnisse

In most countries, groundwater resource is a public good, and the entitlement of use rights by the public authority to final users differs according to a country-specific legislative framework. In Italy, groundwater extraction has been regulated through non-tradable private licenses. At present, the public authority needs to reform the current legislative framework, in order to comply with the Water Framework Directive, aimed at the enhancement of the efficiency of the resource use. This research analyzes the effects of reforming the current framework based on non-tradable use rights, by comparing two different liberalization scenarios: an intra-sector market, and a regional market. Although positive economic benefits are generally expected from the liberalization of use rights at aggregated level, we want to analyze whether effects of the legislative framework causes uneven changes on some farm groups. The empirical case study refers to the Fortore river basin (South of Italy), where groundwater covers about 50–80% of current needs, and informal (though illegal) water markets across neighbor farmers already exist. From the findings, there is no evidence that the exchange liberalization of groundwater use rights leads to gains in terms of the value added and the farmer's revenue. In addition, in the case of an auction system regulated by the public authority, farmers whose water productivity is higher may be able to gain, while others may suffer some losses. In this case, resistances from farmers' associations towards the legislative framework reform may arise

The improvement of water use efficiency is one of the priorities of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC. In order to pursue this objective, the European Union suggests member countries adopt a direct pricing method, in which each user is charged proportionally to water consumption. However, since the implementation cost and the operational costs of the volumetric pricing method are usually higher than those related to other methods the present paper is aimed at verifying whether the volumetric pricing is capable of achieving a higher efficiency. Two aspects of the efficiency are considered and evaluated with a two-step Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA): the technical efficiency, depending on the profitability of the crops, and the ecological efficiency, affected by environmental externalities of the irrigation practice. The results prove that the gain of efficiency due to direct pricing method is rather limited, compared to other methods. ; Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Policy,University of Cordoba, Spain. Department of Production and Innovation in Mediterranean Agriculture and Food System (PrIME), University of Foggia, Italy. Department of Engineering, University of Ferrara, Italy.

Since the first years of 90s, the European Union established two main quality schemes: geographical indications (GIs) and organic production (OP). Although, these two product categories still represent a small share of food market, quality certification schemes seems to sustain the food consumption pattern during the current economic crisis (ISMEA, 2014; ISMEAQualivita, 2017). There is a vast literature focusing on EU quality schemes applied to many food categories, including extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) (e.g.: Scarpa & Del Giudice 2004; Aprile et al., 2012; Cicia et al., 2013; Di Vita et al., 2013; Carlucci et al., 2014; Panico et al. 2014; Del Giudice et al., 2015; Chinnici et al., 2016; Roselli et al., 2016; Boncinelli et al., 2017; Cavallo & Piqueras-Fiszman, 2017). However, in most of these studies GIs and OP have been separately analysed, under the assumption of independence. This paper aims to prove if there are some synergies between GIs and OP labels on olive oil products. Differently from previous studies, in this research the two certifications (GIs and OP) for olive oil products are simultaneously analysed while the independence from each other is checked. To reach this objective, the Italian olive oil consumers' purchasing behaviour has been investigated through a survey involving a national representative sample of primary olive oil purchaser for household members.

In this study we analyze the price inducement effect of a generalized water tariff increase in the adoption of water saving innovation at farm level. We apply a linear programming decision making model to analyze the determinants affecting the adoption of two types of innovation: a process innovation, consisting on a crop mulching practice, and a management innovation, based on a voluntary water seasonal pricing scheme, differentiated according to a peak and off-peak periods. According to our results, the mulching practice is not affected by the tariffs that are still lower than the water marginal productivity, while they exert a negative effect when they become higher. On the contrary, the adoption of the voluntary water seasonal pricing scheme is affected by the tariffs increase only if the latter induce an excessive concentration of water demand during the peak ; Dans cette étude nous présentons une recherche relative à la possibilité que l augmentation de tarif de l eau est capable d induire l agriculteur de adopter une innovation adressée à l épargne de l eau. Notre modèle de programmation linéaire nous a permis de analyser le procès de décision de l agriculteur et d entendre les causes déterminantes de l adoption de deux typologies d innovation: une innovation de procès, relative à une technique de paillis, et une innovation de management, relative à l introduction d un plan volontaire, avec des tarifs différentes entre les periodes de intense et de normale utilisation de l eau. Nos résultats montre que l augmentation de tarif de l eau n est pas une mesure sufficiente pour stimuler les agriculteurs à adopter la technique de paillis, lorsque le tarif de l eau est inférieur à sa productivité marginale. Ou contraire, quand le tarif est plus grand que la productivité marginale de l eau, l augmentation de tarif freine l adoption de l innovation. L introduction des tarifs différentes entre les periodes de intense ed de normale utilisation de l eau est encouragée par l augmentation de tarif seulement quand la demande de l eau est plus concentrée dans la la periode de intense utilisation de l eau

In October 2000, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) established a common framework for water management in Europe, thereby substantially reforming European water legislation. The Directive encourages the use of economic instruments, including water pricing, to ensure water resource management and conservation. The aim of this systematic review was to establish the state of academic research on water pricing in connection with the WFD within the agriculture sector. It emerges that the issue of water pricing is very broad, site-specific and mostly, it faces multidisciplinary issues. Researchers should cross their conventional boundaries of investigation, trying to cut edges. While the Directive advocate for a larger implementation of economic instruments such as pricing, it seems that the large contribution from the economists is yet to come.