Instead of "closed" type of innovation and knowledge accumulation SMEs utilize the "open" way of knowledge acquiring, where they necessarily share their specific information with the partners, while being supplied with new knowledge which might be vital for their own progress. The agricultural...

The innovation capacity (efforts, activities and results) of the individual small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is very limited. Food production (including SMEs) has to fulfil food safety requirements in a rapidly increasing extent, which implies a continuous innovation and development...

Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are economic organizations which can contribute to rural development. We propose a first analysis of their main features and suggest a way for analysing them through the lens of organizational economics. SFSCs are based on proximity between consumers and...

In the years to come Rural Development Policies will be an increasingly important part of EU Cohesion Policies. In particular, Convergence Regions with a high percentage of rural areas and a major development gap will be the most affected by this scenario. The objectives of this paper are...

In many European countries, farmers are a member of a processing or marketing co-operative, and most of these farmers also deliver their products to that co-operative. However, an extensive dataset of Italian farmers shows that not all members deliver to their co-op, and that there are also...

The recent CAP reform introduced new income support instruments much more related on agricultural agents land-use and land-ownership conditions than before. In this perspective the behavioural analysis of land-use and land-ownership decision process seems to be a basic condition to evaluate the...