Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security

Food insecurity, poverty and migration emergencies are the biggest challenges that all modern societies have to deal with. The aim of this paper is to explore the role played by civil society in dealing with these issues through a reflexive approach. Starting from addressing the multidimensional nature of food security, this deliverable comes to adopt the concept of a “democratic and sustainable food system”. This change of focus allows to encompass all the complementary issues: e.g. poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, social equity and social integration. Due to the complex nature of the matter, not only a strong local and global coordination is needed but also a reflexive approach. After introducing the concept of reflexivity, this paper addresses the crucial role that civil society organizations may play in the transition towards a more democratic and sustainable food system, focusing on solidarity purchase groups in Italy. In particular, this deliverable spotlights the collaboration between solidarity purchase groups (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale—GAS-in Italian) and the migrants’ social cooperative “Barikamà” in Rome. That shows an interesting example of how civil society organizations may cope with poverty reduction, social integration and sustainability.

Rice is the main summer crop in Egypt. It is a cash exportable crop that provides a main source of income to the Egyptian farmers and the national economy. However, the farmers used to burn the rice straw at the farm borders and violate the law that forbids such action, which causes socio-economic negative externalities due to the generated smoke from burning. The smoke generated from burning is straw produced as byproduct of cultivated around 0.75 million ha of rice crop in Egypt, causes social costs due to the probability of premature-mortality and morbidity of rural and urban individuals and livestock. To conduct an economic assessment of such negative externalities a field research was conducted. A targeted ration of chopped rice-straw mixed with dissolved urea and molasses at 2% and 3% of weight, respectively, was fed to buffalo-feeder calves for meat production at 40% of the S.E. of the daily ration with a concentrate feed mix of 60% S.E. Such ration was compared with a control ration of dray chopped rice straw with the same proportion of concentrate feed mix. Two feed-response models were estimated for comparison of the two rations on the growth of the buffalo feeder calves for meat production. The Cobb-Douglas response function was the best fitted form according to the economic logic, significance of estimated parameters and the magnitude of R-2. The study derived the production elasticity, marginal daily gain, the value of marginal product from both estimated feed response functions. The economic marketing weight that maximizes the gross margin above the feed costs was estimated under the response model of treat rice straw feeding plan (targeted ration). It reached around 518 Kg live weight, while under the control ration it was only around 384 Kg. The larger market weight of treated rice straw ration was due to higher production elasticity, faster marginal daily gain, better marginal feed conversion and higher palatability of the ration than the control one. Egypt imports of red meat reached about 600 million dollars, due to lack of sufficient feed supply that constrained expansion in red meat production. Therefore, providing treated rice straw feed would provide additional source of livestock feeds which would provide additional 80,000 tons’ carcass weight from fed buffalo calves, which currently are slaughtered as rearing veal calves (60-80 days old). The estimated income generated from one buffalo fed calves reached 50% of the average annual per capita income in Egypt. Such program would also stop the social costs stems from probable premature death and/or morbidity of human and livestock when burning rice straw. The study presented a proposed institutional program to introduce such technology into Egyptian agricultural sector.

Being healthy includes both physical and mental conditions. It is a fact that individuals can create their mental peace and care about their body for now and the future with the help of social activities and healthy eating. 190 student were interviewed face to face via a structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) that was particularly used to measure the sensitivity weights for food habits, and future choices for being healthy. Which choices to be taken into consideration depend on the maximum benefit that the students would get with respect to the Likert scores and AHP scores. Hence a 0–1 integer optimization model provides us with the necessary solution. As a result of the study, students who belong to Best #1 are male, educated in a city/big city and have higher income compared to Best #2 and Best #3. This means that it is crucial for the 41 students to eat organic and non-GMO products. They prefer to consume it now and the most important thing is that they will increase their consumption where these foods are easily accessible. Another considerable finding is that only students who belong to Best #3 prefer to consume organic foods in the future. Furthermore their income level is lower compared to the other two groups. In addition the majority of the students are female in the group. Consumers with low income tend to postpone their more expensive activities. This study is an introductory practice of BeCa Analysis. For future studies, researchers are recommended to expand the number of respondents to represent different types of decision-makers. That would be beneficial for institutions to define the consumer profile that would purchase goods or services for better and healthy living with the best satisfaction.

Gastronomic tourism is becoming an important part of the tourism industry. However, there are very few studies on food tourists’ behaviour comparing with those about tourists’ behaviour in general. The current study provides an analysis of tourists’ behaviour based on the perceived value (PV) and the satisfaction (ST) to predict the intention to revisit (IN) using the Modified Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). The purpose of this study is to unveil the relation between perceived value and intention to revisit (H1), Perceived Value and satisfaction (H2) and satisfaction and intention to revisit (H3) using confirmatory factor analysis as a statistical tool. Results showed that the hypotheses H1, H2 and H3 were significant (p < 0.01) and supported. H3 (β = 0.35) shows that satisfaction is an antecedent to the intention to revisit. The same is true for H1 (β = 0.19) and H2 (β = 0.45) which is proof that perceived value can predict intention to revisit and satisfaction respectively. The contribution of this study is intended to provide empirical results using the modified theory of reasoned action to predict tourists’ behaviour toward Cretan local food which proved that local food can influence the intention to revisit. The implications will be useful for tourism managers, decision makers and destination marketing organizations in Crete and Greece.

The main objective of this research is to determine and describe what constitutes an alternative distribution channel for raw food products by exploring the relative literature and the practices. Alternative food channels cover an extend of channels that are depending on the local conditions and the type of agricultural distributed products. Several factors influence consumers attitudes towards alternative charnels and they are recorded. Generally consumers tend to show a preference towards alternative charnels over the last years particularly for fresh fruits and vegetables.

This paper reviews the possibility of price risk limitation, which is conducive to farmers’ income stabilization. The attempts to control price risk in both the agricultural and horticultural sectors started a long time ago. The price is the most important factor bounding supply and demand on the market. Prices of agri-food products are volatile and derive from many factors, which are unable to be predicted in practice. The influence of many variables is, furthermore, also volatile and emerges in varying intensity. Price risk in the farmers’ case results from the fact that the production decisions are made mostly under the influence of current prices, but products are sold at future prices. It means that the risk in agriculture is multiplied, due to the impossibility of correction of ongoing production. Effects of all risk factors, as well as their correlations, are focused on price. Price volatility, together with the negative effects it causes, is able to destabilize farmers’ incomes, and put them off investments or optimal use of resources, which in consequence may lead to a retreat from the sector. It is crucial to provide to the agriculture sector solutions supporting farmers in taking their own economic risk. The most important thing in market stabilization seems to be its organization in both a vertical and horizontal way with special attention paid to farmers’ cooperation.

In this chapter, we measure how much malaria impacts on farmers’ technical efficiency and the application of these values to present a reliable measure of the farmers’ Willingness-To-Pay for malaria abatement in Ethiopia. Malaria is one of the diseases that has prevented the African continent from achieving its main goal of food availability, security and sustainable development. One major problem policy makers seem to face all the time is the precise amount the households are willing to pay for a prophylactic measure. The epidemiology of the disease on the continent has made this measure difficult and adopting a stated preference approach has not been very helpful. Also, the link between malaria incidence and agricultural productivity has not been fully explored in the literature. We use a dataset from Ethiopia with the corresponding spatial malaria prevalence dataset from the Malaria Atlas Project. We apply this dataset to the envelope theorem to arrive at a reliable estimate of the Willingness-To-Pay and a measure of how much malaria affects farmers’ technical efficiency. The merger of the household dataset, with the spatial malaria dataset and the innovative use of the envelope theorem, is one of the major high points of this chapter. We apply Bayesian Econometrics to our empirical framework. The results show that in Ethiopia, malaria affects efficiency and has an a priori sign. The results further state that for a 100-unit increase in malaria, the household is willing to pay, on average, US$0.12 to purchase prophylactic measures. Policy makers can use these values to introduce minimum prices and gradual repayment schemes for prophylactic measures.

The current study aims to explore consumer attitudes and preferences towards alternative food distribution channels focusing mainly on fresh fruits and vegetables. Consumer behavior towards alternative channels and various factors affecting purchasing decision are investigated and recorded, demonstrating the value of alternative channels in distributing agro-food products. Results manifest alternative channels are trusted by the consumers and they can be expanded particularly for fresh fruits and vegetables.

Concerning the increasing demand for water in arid and semiarid regions, especially in the field of agriculture, an analysis of irrigation efficiency plays a vital role. One of the most important approaches for increasing efficiency in agriculture is to develop modern systems and use them to replace traditional irrigation methods. Tuyserkan Plain is located in Hamadan province, Iran, that is faced with a severe decline of groundwater level. Irregular use of groundwater for agricultural needs and low-efficiency irrigation systems are believed to be the main reasons. In this study, the efficiency of traditional and modern irrigation systems is first analyzed. An irrigation efficiency scenario is presented in order to simulate irrigation efficiency increase effects on the level of groundwater in the aquifer. The irrigation efficiency scenario is simulated using the MODFLOW and WEAP models and is compared to the reference scenario (Current irrigation efficiency is maintained). Although groundwater level declines in both scenarios, the simulation showed that in the reference scenario, groundwater level decrease becomes significantly slower and, as a result, the aquifer will recover.