Authors: PAGE group

On June 19th-21st, the PAGE group attended AIEAA’ Young Researchers’ Day and the 13th AIEAA Conference with a focus on “The social sustainability of European agriculture facing old and new challenges. Issues, methods and policies”, hosted by the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”. The conference hosted dozens of international and national researchers focusing on various perspectives and issues within the agricultural and economic sectors.  

The conference began with the Young Researchers’ Day, highlighting current research trends in applied and agriculture economics. Dr. Stefano Grando, an expert consultant on research policy and international collaboration at the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, who also collaborates with the University of Pisa set the tone for an engaging day. 

The participants then collaborated in groups, creating and defending research report on relevant topics, fostering a dynamic and interactive learning environment.   

On June 20th, the Pre-conference focused on “La transizione ecologica: sfide e opportunità per il comparto olivicolo-oleario”, discussing on the ecological transition in the Italian olive oil sector, with a special focus on its challenges and opportunities.  

Then followed by the findings from the national research project DRASTIC aiming to reconceptualize the Italian agri-food industry from a circular economy perspective, were also presented. The day included talks by experts and a round table with industry stakeholders, offering an opportunity for interaction and exchange of ideas. 

The main conference featured a keynote by Jesús Antón (OECD, Paris) who held a plenary session on how to reconcile productivity and sustainability objectives in the OECD countries’ agriculture policies.

During the parallel sessions, some PAGE PhD students and researchers presented their and co-authors’ contributions:

• Luciano Pagano: Assessing the sustainability of an innovative agroecological weed management practice: a cost-benefit analysis in a vineyard in Tuscany
• Felicitas Ogochukwu Okoye: Towards Digital Farming: Exploring Technological Integration in Agricultural Practices of a sample of Italian livestock farmers

The first day was closed by the AIEAA Association’ members Assembly.

On the 21^st of June, other PAGE members’ long abstracts were selected for parallel session or pitches, in particular:

• Barbora Nohlová presented “Identifying social justice barriers to more sustainable land use management in Tuscany and Czech Republic rural areas” and “Social justice issues concerning the clash between pastoral and agricultural patterns and the Wolf management program: the case of the Czech Republic”
• Selene Righi delivered her speech on “Inclusive agricultural work and migrants’ reception: best practices for rural revitalization”
• Letizia Forzoni introduced “The socio-economic sustainability of the livestock value chain: from an assessment metric to the transformational capacity”

After the coffee break, the second Keynote Eva-Marie Memeken (ETH Zürich) reflected on “Labor Policy and Social Sustainability in Food Systems”, dealing with employment challenges (i.e., labor shortages, unemployment), policies for decent work conditions, ranging from goals to tools, and policy and research agenda. Among the points raised, the CAP social conditionality, the certification of social standards, the contribution of social innovations, how to minimise the social cost of technological transition and how to collect manage and share data were perceived as especially important.

Following lunch, Luca Cesaro from CREA PB chaired a plenary session on “Evaluating and monitoring the sustainability of EU farms: the new FSDN,” with contributions from Hans Vrolijk (WUR-NL, Franziska Schweiger (EC-DG Agri), and Eugenio Pomarici (University of Padua).

Looking ahead, we would like to reveal the news that the University of Pisa will host the next edition of the AIEAA Conference. We eagerly anticipate seeing everyone there and continuing our discussion on upcoming theme.