Edited by F. Boncinelli, A. Mattei, M. Mariani, L. Pinetini and S. Turchetti. Interview by IZI S.p.A.
This study is an integral part of the joint IRPET-Tuscany Region project “Effects of interventions for the introduction and maintenance of organic farming practices,” scheduled for 2025 (Activity no. 1.2025), and was commissioned to IRPET by the EAFRD Managing Authority in agreement with the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the Tuscany Region.
The following individuals contributed to the conception, implementation, and writing of this study: Fabio Boncinelli (University of Florence), Marco Mariani (IRPET), Alessandra Mattei (University of Florence), Lisa Pinetini (University of Florence), and Sara Turchetti (IRPET). Valentina Patacchini (IRPET) contributed to the creation of the dataset. The survey of agricultural businesses was carried out by IZI S.p.A.
Lisa Pinetini’s involvement, which involved organizing a literature review and supervising the preparation of the survey questionnaire, took place as part of a curricular training internship for the University of Florence.
The study, carried out as part of the technical assistance activities of the CSR 2023–2027 and co-financed by the EAFRD, assesses the effects of public incentives for conversion to organic farming in Tuscany, with reference to the 2015 call for proposals of the EAFRD RDP 2014-2022, aimed at initially conventional agricultural enterprises. The objective is to examine the extent to which the support has affected the survival of farms and the probability of them being organic nine years after the intervention, adopting a causal approach based on potential outcomes. Since survival may depend on the incentive, the analysis uses principal stratification to represent the different causal paths through which farms respond to the treatment. This specific evaluation design, implemented using a Bayesian approach to inference, allows for the joint assessment of survival and causal effects on outcomes only in the strata where they can be defined, and for the examination of the distribution of strata in the eligible population and among the treated, providing an accurate reading of the targeting of the measure. The results show that a limited number of businesses show survival directly attributable to the incentive (Protected stratum), while among the many businesses that would have survived anyway (Resilient), the support significantly increases the probability of maintaining organic farming in the long term. The differences in the composition of the strata indicate that the degree of structuring of the enterprises, in terms of size and organizational structure, varies significantly between the different strata, reflecting non-homogeneous profiles. At the same time, the telephone survey conducted on the enterprises treated and survived allows for an in-depth characterization of the profiles of the Resilient enterprises treated, offering useful elements for interpreting their permanence in the organic method. Overall, the study provides a detailed picture of the effectiveness of incentives and offers useful guidance for directing current and future planning towards more targeted interventions that are consistent with the different responses of Tuscan agricultural enterprises.
