SOCIOECONOMIC EVALUATION OF THE SINGLE PAYMENT SCHEME TROUGH AN ESPERIMENTAL APPROCH. SOME EVIDENCES FROM ITALY

This paper provides a specific take on the issues of the recent CAP reform impacts on the European farming. Results have been illustrated through working at micro-level (case study area), specifically focusing on the durum food supply chain in Tuscany. Traditionally, much of the past analyses and theoretical debate on policy impacts has been mainly based on quantitative approaches, used for simulating the farmers’ behaviours. By contrast, few qualitative approaches have been developed for evaluating policy impacts on farming. This paper aims to challenge such dualistic thinking by exploring both two approaches. Firstly, the likely effects of decoupling regime -introduced by the CAP reform -on land use, farm income, and labour allocation have been explored through the Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP). Then the qualitative survey, besides providing a comprehensive overview of effective impacts on food chain, allows to explore the complex range of variables which could have affected the decision making at farm level. Rather than demonstrating the coherence between the two analyses, or the diverse results, the objective is to suggest new forms of understanding and new methodological possibilities for future investigations about policy impacts on farming and supply chain dynamics