AGROFORESTATION ACTIONS FINANCED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION AND LEVEL OF INCOME IN ITALIAN RURAL AREAS

N. Galluzzo

Abstract: Many Italian regions have allocated through Rural Development Plans subsides to farmers to improve the level of agroforestation with the aim to reduce rural depopulation, getting better farmer’s income, and also to protect environment. Some quantitative studies have pointed out the role, function of public grants, and subsides to implement rural development by afforestation, supported by European Union funds, solving many social issues tightly linked to marginalization in rural territories. The purpose of this paper has been, using a multiple regression model, to investigate in all Italian regions if during the time 2000-2006 and over the following seven year period 2007-2013 there have been some relationships among independent variables such as afforestated surface, workforce in the primary sector and public funds allocated by the European Union about agroforestation and the dependent variable income of farmers. The main results over the first time of investigation have demonstrated as agroforestation in rural areas is pivotal to get better the living condition in the countryside and it has underlined the fundamental function of public funds to guarantee a fair rural development, reducing rural depopulation and increasing the production of positive externalities. During the second part of the analysis on Italian Rural Development Plans, the drop in funds and subsides allocated by the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy has brought about some effects on rural development. The second stage of this paper has analyzed in 2000 and 2012 the productive efficiency using an output-oriented function able to maximize the output in terms of farmers’ income combining different level of input. For the next time 2014-2020, it is pivotal to implement agro-environment measures able to improve the agroforestation and multifunctionality reducing the marginalization of rural space and the depopulation in the countryside and getting better the efficiency of allocated funds about agroforestation.

Keywords: multifunctionality; productive efficiency; rural areas; Rural Development Plan

Date published: 2019-01-28