Agriculture is a major source of food and income for poor and rural households living in developing countries; yet, agricultural systems are increasingly threatened by changing climate conditions that compromise their productivity and resilience. Over time, international aid has provided support to the agricultural systems of recipient countries, though the literature is not unanimous in confirming their effectiveness.To shed light on this issue, the purpose of this work is to assess the efficacy of these aid in increasing the agricultural productivity of recipient nations, employing original approaches.First, to adopt a climate change perspective, we conduct our analysis using a recent classification adopted by the Official Development Assistance—the Rio Markers—which distinguishes aid between adaptation and mitigation to climate change.Second, taking into account that the starting conditions of recipient countries can significantly impact aid effectiveness, we classify 115 developing countries into four subgroups according to their vulnerability and readiness to climate change, as evaluated by the ND-Gain indicators.We perform a two-stage instrumental variable approach within the context of panel models to investigate the potential growth-enhancing impact that different types of agricultural aid may exert on the agriculture Total Factor Productivity in recipient countries.Our findings show that aid to agriculture, especially adaptation aid, has a positive impact on agricultural productivity growth. We also observe that countries with a higher climate readiness benefit the most from aid, whereas countries highly vulnerable and heavily dependent on the agricultural sector are less able to leverage the aid received to the same extent.Overall, our analysis confirms the importance of international aid to the agricultural sector and suggests that accurate impact assessment analyses should also consider a climate perspective to distinguish adaptation from mitigation aid.

During the past decades, various technological applications relating to an extension of the shelf life of food products have been introduced. The adoption of such technologies in the fresh-cut salad sector is a key issue for the sustainable management of the supply chain. The aim of the study is to analyse consumers’ attitude towards fresh-cut salad with an extended shelf life date. The analysis was based on face-to-face interviews with 351 consumers living in Lombardy, one of the Italian provinces where the consumption of fresh-cut salad is high and characterized by good margins of development. Principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was used as preliminary data preparation for market segmentation. Cluster analysis revealed the presence of three different consumers groups. Only the cluster of ‘favorable’ shows a positive attitude towards the extended shelf life date. Consumers grouped in the cluster of ‘skeptical’ associate such innovation to a low level of product freshness. The cluster of ‘mistrust’ reveals the presence of consumers with safety concerns towards the prolongation of the shelf life date. Such consumers do not reveal a high level of trust in processing firms and their related brands.

Purpose: The goal of this study is to understand if ethnocentrism exists at the sub-regional level among honey consumers living in the same production area as a protected designation of origin (PDO). Moreover, this analysis explores if ethnocentrism is influenced by individual economic conditions, among other socio-demographic characteristics.Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 725 consumers was collected through the use of a questionnaire that was circulated in the province of Varese, one of the few honey PDO areas in Italy. The authors performed a principal component analysis and a two-step cluster analysis to identify different PDO honey consumer segments, focusing on their interest for PDO attributes.Findings: The authors identified four consumer segments, depending on socio-demographic, consumption habits, frequencies, preferred attributes and preferences for the PDO product. One cluster exhibited strong preferences for the PDO honey, in the spirit of ethnocentrism, and was characterised by low-income levels; ethnocentric preferences were also observed in another cluster that had a different socio-economic profile.Research limitations/implications: Honey is a niche product and not universally diffused among consumers: further analyses should investigate sub-national ethnocentrism for more universal food products. Yet, through the inspection of the different profiles found, it was possible to devise marketing strategies to boost PDO honey purchasing and to bring consumers closer to PDO products.Originality/value: This analysis considers ethnocentrism as a segmentation criterion for PDO honey consumers that live in the very same PDO honey production area and enriches the existing literature on the relationship between ethnocentrism and individual economic status.

In this paper we analyse vertical price transmission in two typical Italian wheat chains, the pasta and bread chains, that were particularly affected by strong market fluctuations during the last years. After having split the chains into two sides, upstream (farm–wholesale) and downstream (wholesale–retail), we apply a cointegration methodology allowing for the presence of potentially unknown structural breaks. Then, for the different subperiods detected by the break dates, we investigate the evolving price transmission elasticities finding evidence of asymmetric price transmission. In the pasta chain, farmers seem to be price-takers, while in the bread chain price transmission is related to market structure and to the coexistence of small and large retailers.