Sustainable food consumption has attracted widespread attention over the last decades by scholars, policy makers and consumers. In line with this, farmers’ markets (FMs) have the potential to encourage sustainable agricultural production and consumption. By reducing the number of actors and distances along the food chain, these alternative food systems foster the reconnection between farmers and consumers and contribute to different social, economic and environmentally sustainable goals. This paper provides insights into how consumers’ sustainability concerns are related to their motivation for shopping at FMs. By means of a choice experiment, we analyze the determinants of consumers’ preferences for buying apples at FMs. We are particularly interested in understanding how attitudes towards the three sustainability dimensions are related to consumer preferences in this context. We find that consumer attitudes towards direct contact with producers, contributing to farmers’ income, and environmental benefits, can be directly related to product characteristics that are specific to FMs.

While there is evidence of consumers’ interest in wine sustainability, acceptance of innovations in wine production is not guaranteed. The current study addresses this issue by analyzing consumers’ acceptance of fungus-resistant grape (FRG) wines, a sustainable innovation that can substantially reduce the need for chemical inputs in viticulture. To do so, by means of an online survey including large samples of regular wine drinkers in Italy (N = 752), the UK (N = 858) and the USA (N = 856), the study compares individuals’ preferences for conventional wines with preferences for FRG wines. The study also explores whether FRG wine acceptance is influenced by informal or formal purchase occasion, by different types of information regarding the product, and by individual attitudinal characteristics. The findings show a general acceptance of FRG wines among consumers. In particular, consumers’ preferences for FRG wines on formal occasions are not significantly different from their preferences for conventional wine, whereas on informal occasions, consumers prefer FRG wines over conventional wines. Regarding the impact of information on participant choice, participants informed about the potential effects of FRG on sensory wine characteristics had lower preferences for FRG wines than those who read an information script regarding crop biodiversity. Last, individuals’ sustainability concerns and food technology neophobia had positive and negative influences on FRG acceptance, respectively. Overall, this research provides wineries, nurseries and policy-makers with important insights concerning the market potential of FRG wines in three key markets.

Sustainable food consumption has attracted a widespread attention during last decades by scholars, policy makers and consumers. In line with this, farmers’ markets (FMs) have the potential to encourage sustainable agricultural production and consumption. By reducing the number of actors and distances along the food chain, these alternative food systems foster the reconnection between farmers and consumers and contribute to different social, economic and environmental sustainable goals. This paper provides insights on the role of consumers' sustainability concerns related to their motivation for shopping at FMs. By means of a choice experiment, we analyze the determinants of consumers’ WTP for buying apples at FMs. We are particularly interested in understanding how attitudes towards the three sustainability dimensions are related to consumer preferences in this context. We find that consumer attitudes towards direct contact with producers, contributing to farmers’ income, and environmental benefits can be directly related to product characteristics that are specific to FMs.

Wine tourism has long been a strategic tool for Italian wineries. The Covid-19 outbreak jeopardised its dynamics on multiple levels, creating physical (e.g., social distancing, travel bans) and psychological barriers. Online wine experiences constitute one of the key resilience strategies adopted by wine tourism actors, being still a relatively unexplored phenomenon in the scientific literature. The current study tackles this gap by analysing the drivers of interest in online wine experiences on the demand side, i.e. among a sample of Italian wine tourists (n=408), through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Notably, the model considers long-term (involvement with wine) and short-term (Covid-19 fear and anxiety) factors, digitalisation and willingness to support local wineries by partaking in wine tourism. Results highlight that the interest in online wine experiences is driven by context-dependent factors like fear and anxiety linked to Covid-19, and the involvement with wine. Diversely, willingness to go on a wine holiday is not a significant antecedent, even with Covid-19 fear and anxiety as limiting factors. Practical and managerial implications are discussed.

Over the last years, farmers have been increasingly exposed to income risk due to the volatility of the commodities prices. Among others, hedging in futures markets (i.e., financial markets) represents an available strategy for producers to cope with income risks at farm level. To better understand the advantages of such promising tools, this paper aims at analyzing the hedging effectiveness for soybean, corn and milling wheat producers in Italy. Following the literature, three different methodologies (i.e., naïve, OLS, GARCH) are applied for the estimation of the hedge portfolio, then compared to an unhedged portfolio for assessing the income risk reduction. Findings confirm the hedging effectiveness of futures contracts for all the considered commodities, showing also that this effect increases with longer hedge horizons, and also showing better performances for the European exchange market (i.e., Euronext), compared to the North American counterpart.

Since its appearance in Algerian agriculture, the greenhouse production system has turned the agricultural sector upside down, bringing great advantages for production in terms of quality and quantity, creating a very important socio-economic dynamic, especially in the Saharan region. This paper makes a new contribution by providing information on the impact of agricultural policies on greenhouse development in Biskra (southeastern city in Algeria). This study aims to understand the type of farms/farmers most specialized in greenhouses as well as the relationship between the use of these land acquisition and financing policies (PNDA) and their degree of specialization in greenhouses. A field survey was held from February to April 2021 in the M’ziraa region (a municipality of Biskra City), completing 97 questionnaires. Collected data were analysed by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and Truncated regression. The results show that farmers who used PNDA to acquire the land and for greenhouse investments and those with a lower education level are less likely to specialize in greenhouse production. Similarly, the effect of farm size is negative on the specialization in greenhouse production. Conversely, we found that farmers who do not directly manage the farm and those who have a longer experience with greenhouse production invest a higher share of their land in greenhouses.