In the European Union legislative proposals for the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) the income support remains an essential part of the CAP. This paper analyses agricultural income levels, the role of EU aids in ensuring fair levels of income and how different socio-economic and structural characteristics affect farms’ economic viability. Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data have been processed and economic viability has been assessed by comparing Farm Net Income to a reference income and by estimating a profitability index to check whether the agricultural activities remunerate factors owned by the farmer and his/her family. After an explorative analysis, two multinomial logit models have been estimated to evaluate how structural and socio-economic characteristics affect the likelihood of a farm to be viable with and without EU aids. Both structural farm characteristics and farmer’s production strategies explain the likelihood of a farm to be viable in the short and in the medium-long term. Farms are more likely to be viable as the size increases and the higher the capital intensity, while viability likelihood decreases with the farmer’s age, when the holder is a woman, and the farm is localized in Southern Italy. CAP payments do not modify the factors that affect farm viability but can change their weight.

This paper investigates how and to what extent European and national policies have financed Italian agritourism. It analyses financial support derived from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (First and Second Pillar) and national and local subsidies. For this purpose, the authors have proposed a comparative analysis between Italian agritourism and farms without tourism activities, by stressing the distribution of public financial supports concerning the 2007–2013 programming period of the European Union (EU) for Rural Development. The empirical analysis is based on the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) dataset. The data were stratified by altimetry zone and farm size. Descriptive statistics and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for each group were used. The main results show how the Second Pillar has mainly supported small and medium-sized farms with tourism activities and located in disadvantaged areas. This study could be useful to policymakers regarding the evaluation of the mission for diversification in agriculture, represented here by the carrying out of tourist activities on farms and the contribution for the retention of small-scale farms in marginal areas.

EU production is important for global poultry markets and is concentrated in a few countries, including Italy. The aim of this study is to investigate the technical efficiency of Italian poultry farms in 2019–2022, characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic and avian influenza, which occurred almost simultaneously and presented poultry farms with important economic challenges. In particular, this study aims to observe how efficiently poultry farms utilized their inputs with regards to controllable or managerial factors and exogenous shocks and factors beyond the firm’s control. Data was retrieved from the RICA database, the Italian section of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network. After a descriptive analysis, a stochastic frontier model was applied to the panel data to estimate production frontier and firm-specific inefficiency factors. Results reveal the relevance of certain cost categories (feed, water, fuel, and electricity) and their increase over the observed period. Current and capital costs have positive and significant impacts on the value of production. As regards the determinants of technical efficiency, a greater endowment of some inputs (labor and farm area) and the sizes of farms in terms of livestock units are correlated with an improvement in the technical efficiency of farms.

EU production is important on global poultry markets and is concentrated in a few coun-tries, among which Italy. Aim of the study is to investigate the technical efficiency of Ital-ian poultry farms in years 2019-2022 characterized by Covid-19 pandemic and avian in-fluenza that occurred almost simultaneously and that presented poultry farms with im-portant economic challenges. In particular, the study aims to observe how efficiently poultry farms utilized their inputs due to controllable or managerial factors and to exoge-nous shocks and factors beyond the firm's control. Data was retrieved from the RICA da-tabase, the Italian section of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network. After a descriptive analysis, a Stochastic Frontier Model was applied to the panel data to estimate the pro-duction frontier and firm-specific inefficiency factors. The results reveal the relevance of certain cost categories (feed, water, fuel and electricity) and their increase over the ob-served period. Current and capital costs have a positive and significant impact on the value of production. As regards the determinants of technical efficiency, a greater endow-ment of some inputs (labor, feed, and water) and the size of farms in terms of livestock units are correlated with an improvement in the technical efficiency of farms.