The Dimensions of Agricultural Diversification: A Spatial Analysis of Italian Municipalities

Abstract

Diversification in agriculture could ensure the survival of farming by broadening the income base of farms and encouraging agricultural sustainability. The diversification of on-farm activities may depend on socioeconomic and environmental characteristics. Although multifunctionality is a hotly debated topic, few papers have focused on the farm characteristics that influence diversification and none have focused on the influence of the spatial pattern. This paper examines the relationship between farm characteristics and the adoption of a specific type of diversification. An econometric model is presented that uses a spatial autoregressive lag model at the municipal scale. The results demonstrate that the activation of each diversification dimension is influenced by both internal and external factors, encompassing farmers' characteristics, the farm structure and territorial features, including regional and spatial patterns. Deepening is mainly influenced by the farmer's age, education, and the presence of small and labor-intensive farms. The key factors for broadening diversification are the presence of small farms and farms with mixed production (breeding and crop cultivation). Regrounding is most affected by the labor-intensive farms in the area and the farms with mixed production.

Drivers and Barriers towards Social Farming: A Systematic Review

“…SF, despite its ability to encourage agricultural sustainability [20] and to create externalities through the social inclusion function, still represents an experimental field that requires coordination between the different authorities responsible for legislation and the realities in the territory. For this reason, the development of such practices is often hindered [21].…”

Bio-districts and the territory: evidence from a regression approach

“…In fact, these farms often opt for alternative solutions for selling their products and solving competitiveness problems (Corsi et al, 2020). According to Mazzocchi et al (2020), in the past 40 years the Italian trend in farm number records a continuous decrease of small enterprises, those with less than 5 ha, thus they should be the most interested in searching for alternative supply chain system.…”

“…Farms producing PDO and PGI products, as well as direct selling farms, should be more sensitive to short supply chains than other typologies of enterprises, and interested to diversify their own activities (Mazzocchi et al, 2020;Monaco et al, 2016). Similarly, bio-districts represents a model to manage food supply chain involving the promotion of the territory, for example by the co-management process between farms and tourist offer in an area (Favilli et al, 2020).…”

“…Farmers' age is often impacting on farms innovation for the interest of young farmers generation to be involved in new projects having an open-mindedness approach (Mazzocchi et al, 2020). As an example, many studies (Meraner et al, 2015;Rivaroli et al, 2016,) have confirmed a relationship between the young farmers and the diversification degree of farms.…”

Highlighting the Drivers of Italian Diversified Farms Efficiency: A Two-Stage DEA-Panel Tobit Analysis

“…A rich body of literature has addressed determinants of farm diversification and the impact of socio-economic variables on the efficiency performances of farms, although, results are not always consistent (e.g., among the most recent [5][6][7][8]).…”