Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main factors that may affect Italian consumers’ willingness to eat insects. Italy is a fairly special case among Western countries: in many Italian regions, there is old traditional food with insects. Design/methodology/approach Data come from a sample of 456 consumers living in four Italian regions. The empirical investigation involves several steps: modification of class distributions to obtain a balanced sample; model estimation using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator; model evaluation using out-of-sample classification performance measures; and estimation of the “effect” of each explanatory variable via average predictive comparisons. The uncertainty associated with the whole procedure is evaluated using the bootstrap. Findings The interviewed consumers are generally unwilling to eat insect-based food. However, factors such as previous experience, taste expectations and attitude towards both new food experiences and sustainable food play an important role in shaping individual inclination towards eating insects. Research limitations/implications The sample analysed in this study is not representative of the whole national population, as it happens in most papers dealing with entomophagy. Originality/value The paper revisits the issue using a relatively large sample and sophisticated statistical methods. The likely average effect of each explanatory variable is estimated and discussed in detail. The results provide interesting insights on how to approach a hypothetical Italian consumer in view of the possible development of a new market for edible insects.

The objective of this paper is to provide an empirical investigation into the decision to participate in rural landscape conservation schemes in Italy. Although the high emphasis given to this issue and the increasing resources devoted to the landscape conservation schemes in the Rural Development Programmes (RDP) implemented by the Italian regions, farmers' participation is still very low. A better understanding of what motivates farmers to participate may help to increase adoption of the scheme and the effectiveness of the scheme design itself. In this paper we use data from 2149 household farms located in three Italian northern regions-Alto Adige, Lombardy and Piedmont-extracted from the Farm Accountancy Data Network sample, to estimate a discrete choice model aimed at identifying the variables that affect the probability of participating in a landscape conservation scheme. The model results indicate that participation correlates to farmer income. In addition to this, the probability is influenced by farm characteristics; mainly the use of organic farming practices, specialisation in livestock production and location of the farm in mountain areas.

The main goal of SH2.0 is to create and define an innovative and technological infrastructure, as in Cloud environment, for the development of services necessary to the activation of new models in terms of health and wellness. In this context, the first proposal of SH2.0 is to enhance the life style of the citizens, starting from individual activities and adopting correct behaviors; the second aim regards the preventive health care feasible by institutional subjects (as, for example, Ministry of Health) which must be supported in the collection and analysis of data and information necessary to address specific actions and interventions for the early detection of diseases.

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