Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the major crops of the world for feed, food, and industrial uses. It was originated in Central America and introduced into Europe and other continents after Columbus trips at the end of the 15^th century. Due to the large adaptability of maize, farmers have originated a wide variability of genetic resources with wide diversity of adaptation, characteristics, and uses. Nowadays, in Europe, maize is mainly used for feed, but several food specialties were originated during these five centuries of maize history and became traditional food specialties. This review summarizes the state of the art of traditional foodstuffs made with maize in Southern, South-Western and South-Eastern Europe, from an historic evolution to the last research activities that focus on improving sustainability, quality and safety of food production.

The last two decades have witnessed an increasing enthusiasm of consumers for products with specific characteristics, whether related to origin or production technology. Several studies show that consumers are willing to pay price premium for organic products and we may expect that the same happens with other attributes, such as origin and tradition. The aim of this study, based on surveys conducted in the context of a taste panel, is to establish the price premium that consumers are willing to pay for the feature «traditional variety», using Portuguese traditional varieties of apples as a case study. Using contingent valuation to determine the willingness to pay and panel data techniques for estimation, a hedonic price model is developed to explain how the price that consumers declare to be willing to pay is related, besides variety, to different attributes of apples, such as appearance and taste, production method and threat of extinction. The results suggest that consumers, regardless of their socio-economic characteristics, are willing to pay a higher price not only for apples with better taste, appearance and smell, but also for Portuguese traditional varieties.

One of the stated goals of the common agricultural policy reforms has been to provide a fairer distribution of payments across and within member states, but little progress has been accomplished, with about 20% of farmers receiving 80% of the total amount of direct payments. This research aims to investigate the underlying structural factors that contribute to this inequity in Portugal, with a particular focus on farming systems. A logit model was developed using agricultural census data at the commune level, with the percentage of farmers receiving direct payments as the dependent variable. The findings reveal that the local importance of arable crops (cereals) and cattle farming systems, as well as the existence of larger farms and younger farmers, all contributed to farmers' increasing access to direct payments between 2009 and 2019. In traditional Mediterranean farming systems, access to direct payments has been restricted to a smaller proportion of farmers. Nevertheless, it is evident that a certain degree of redistribution took place during the previous programming cycle of the common agricultural policy. This redistribution included a shift in support from larger to smaller farmers, older to younger farmers, and from olives, cereals, and cattle to other farming systems, particularly vineyards.