We distinguish different types of Short Food Supply Chains (SFSC); nevertheless, their common main characteristic relate to reduced numbers of intermediaries between farmers/food producers and consumers. The aim of the paper is to present the SFSCs as local and sustainable food systems with their possible development. The SFSC idea follows the concept of sustainability, which is based on three pillars: environmental, social, and economic. In the paper, the authors also highlight other barriers to growth, and challenges faced by local food systems.

Profitability is a complex notion, intertwined with theoretical, socio-economic, and modern economic considerations. While traditionally linked to monopoly advantages, contemporary views broaden this to include shareholder value creation. In agriculture, profitability faces impediments such as rising input costs, market volatility, and economic disparities, emphasizing technological innovation, market conditions, and policy as crucial determinants. This study presents an econometric simulation model to analyze and forecast wheat production profitability in Poland from 2023 to 2027, providing insights into production efficiencies, market dynamics, and policy impacts. Using a system of recursive equations, the model forecasts profitability, integrating econometric techniques with expert insights. It examines variables like resource use, production levels, and price changes, validated through FADN data. The findings reveal that price relations and production efficiencies are the key to profitability. The model highlights market volatility, particularly through “price scissors”, as the main factor influencing profitability. Favorable price conditions significantly boost profitability and incentivize production. The model is a critical tool for analyzing wheat profitability, highlighting the influence of market and policy changes. Future work could extend the model’s use to other regions or crops, incorporating advanced technologies to improve accuracy. This study offers valuable insights for agricultural economics, aiding stakeholders in strategic decision-making.

This paper presents a conceptual framework aimed at exploring the connections between integration within the food supply chain and the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. The analysis combines theoretical insights with empirical research, specifically focusing on the economic aspect of sustainability, measured through efficiency. The study emphasizes the critical role of integrating participants across the food supply chain to achieve sustainability goals. It discusses methodologies for assessing integration levels within the chain, providing a theoretical and analytical basis for modeling integration and efficiency within the supply chain. To empirically validate these relationships, an extended stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method was applied to selected sectors within the food processing industry. The results demonstrate that enhancing integration with suppliers and buyers can significantly improve efficiency within the food chain. In conclusion, through deductive reasoning, this study asserts that integration plays a pivotal role in advancing economic sustainability objectives within the food sector. This framework contributes to a deeper understanding of how integration influences sustainability outcomes, offering valuable insights for stakeholders aiming to enhance sustainability in food systems.

We assess long-term labour mismatches in the European Union (EU27) by projecting the occupational distribution of workers and skill-specific labour demand up to 2060. Using a dynamic microsimulation approach ( Link4Skills-Mic ), we jointly model demographic, educational, and labour force dynamics at the individual level and combine country-specific projections of labour supply with projections of occupational demand. The analysis highlights growing imbalances: although the supply of highly educated workers continues to rise, shifts in demand are not evenly distributed across skill levels. Consequently, underutilization of high-skilled workers is projected to coexist with persistent vacancies in medium- and low-skilled occupations. Rather than indicating widespread labour shortages, these trends point to structural mismatches driven by the misalignment of worker qualifications, job characteristics, and hiring practices. To explore potential responses, we examine a series of policy scenarios such as expanded immigration, education reform, mid-career retraining, delayed retirement, and employer-led automation and upskilling. The findings show that, while certain policies can reduce specific mismatches, no single intervention closes all the gaps that emerge. Notably, automation reduces vacancies but increases underutilization, whereas human capital strategies shift mismatches across skill levels. These results suggest that addressing future labour mismatches will require coordinated, comprehensive and varied strategies that integrate demographic realities with evolving job demands in Europe’s ageing and increasingly digitalized and knowledge-based economies.

The article discusses the issue of the impact of changes in purchase prices of an agricultural product on production profitability in agriculture, and more precisely with respect to agricultural producers on a given agricultural product market (in a given sector) in an analytical and model approach. The logic of formal deductive reasoning is then illustrated and verified empirically. The authors' own analytical description of the relationship determining changes in the level of production profitability for agricultural producers, with a particular emphasis on the change in the purchase price, is in fact the goal and added value of the article. It enables the identification of dependencies resulting from market laws that affect changes in production profitability. In particular, the authors present the influence of mutual relationships between changes in the purchase price level and the purchase volume on revenue, and thus production profitability. The article has a theoretical and cognitive and, to some extent, methodological message. The reasoning in the article is carried out in terms and at the level of generality appropriate for microeconomics and the theory of agricultural economics as well as a given product market for agricultural producers.

Dairy farm profitability in the European Union has become increasingly volatile following market deregulation, complicating farm operations and undermining food security amid geopolitical tensions. To address the need for a streamlined analytical tool, this study develops a simulation model of milk production profitability tailored to small, open economies, using Poland as a case study. The model defines a profitability coefficient as the ratio of sector-level milk revenues to feed costs and decomposes it into three dynamic components: production efficiency (milk yield per feed unit), the price spread between milk and feed, and the net effect of policy interventions on revenues and costs. Exogenous variables (milk prices, feed prices, and policy support indices) are projected under baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic scenarios, while endogenous variables (profitability, herd size, and yield) evolve recursively based on estimated lags reflecting biological and economic responses. Simulation results for 2023–2027 indicate that profitability trajectories hinge primarily on price spreads, with policy measures playing a stabilizing but secondary role. Optimistic scenarios yield significant increases in profitability, whereas pessimistic assumptions lead to significant declines. These findings highlight the need to balance key market drivers—such as the relationship between milk prices and feed costs—with appropriately designed support instruments for milk producers. The model provides policymakers with a tool to adjust interventions so that support instruments are effective but do not lead to excessive reliance on public assistance.