Cost benefit analysis of diversified farming systems across Europe: Incorporating non-market benefits of ecosystem services.

Crop diversification can enhance farm economic sustainability while reducing the negative impact on the environment and ecosystem services related. Despite the market and non-market benefits of crop diversification, monocropping is a widely used dominant practice in Europe. In this context, this works aims to assess the overall economic impact of several crop diversification systems across Europe and compared it to the monocropping system. For this purpose, an economic valuation by integrating market and non-market values for eight case studies distributed across three different European pedoclimatic regions (Southern Mediterranean, Northern Mediterranean and Boreal) is proposed. The economic valuation was conducted both in the short and medium-long term. For the short-term we conducted a social gross margin analysis, while for the medium-long term a cost-benefit analysis is developed. The results show an improvement in social gross margins for most of the diversification scenarios assessed when environmental and socio-cultural benefits are considered in the short-term. In the medium and long-term the transformation of cropping towards a more diversified agriculture is encouraged by greater economic benefits. These results provide a first insight in global economic performance of diversified cropping systems, whose main contribution relies on the integration of market and non-market values of ecosystem services from crop diversification. They are expected to be useful for guiding policy makers to promote crop diversification practices as a key instrument for building resilience in farming systems for an adaptive management to climate change.

Quantification and economic assessment of surplus bread in Italian small-scale bakeries: An explorative study.

The generation of bread waste at suppliers and retailers is often linked to the production of surplus bread. This study reports the results of the first direct quantification and economic assessment of surplus bread conducted in Italy, involving a panel of 12 bakeries and their branches located in the Lazio region, which compiled a daily diary for 5 months. They are small-scale bakeries which reflect the typical structure of the Italian businesses in the bakery sector, producing fresh bread and selling it directly to consumers. The surplus bread measured during the study consists of 6,694 kg in total, with an average quantity of 4.83 kg/day per bakery. Studying the three main products (common bread, focaccia bread and bread rolls), the average rate of surplus is respectively 5.88 %, 3.99 % and 5.28 % of the production. The corresponding economic loss represents, on average, 5.44 % of the daily turnover. A set of factors seems to exert highest influence on the generation of surplus, as the range of production, location and number of customers. When surplus bread occurs, in 63 % of the cases it is managed on alternative routes to avoid disposal. Even if detected surplus bread does not necessarily become waste, it indeed represents a big loss for bakeries.