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This study aims to analyse the key company-level variables influencing pollutant emissions in the Spanish agri-food sector and investigate the bidirectional relationship between international trade and environmental performance. Using panel data from 2007–2020, we employ discrete choice models to test causal relationships between business variables and environmental impact. Empirical findings show a negative correlation between internationalisation and polluting emissions from agri-food companies. Additionally, other factors, such as company age and size, also influence this index. These results provide valuable insights for economic decision-makers in the agri-food market, highlighting the implications of international trade and business variables on pollution levels.

The consumption of local wine at tourist destinations plays a fundamental role in creating authentic experiences. However, there is very little research that has looked in depth into the factors that influence tourists' consumption of this product, especially in relation to epistemic benefits and responsible tourist behaviour. This study proposes a theoretical model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). We conducted a survey involving 619 travellers who regularly consume wine when visiting Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). The results show that epistemic benefit and responsible tourist behaviour have a positive relationship with attitudes toward local wine consumption, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. Furthermore, the relationships proposed by the TPB are confirmed, except for the relationship between subjective norms and behavioural intention. These findings provide new knowledge on local wine consumption by tourists which will help to develop strategies to encourage its consumption in tourist destinations.

Digitisation enables the integration of science, technology and finance, and this trend toward integration can in turn enhance the innovation efficiency of listed agricultural enterprises. By leveraging the quasi-natural experiment of China's 2011 pilot program for technology finance – also known as science, technology, and finance, this paper uses the difference-in-differences (DID) model to demonstrate that the science and technology finance policy positively impacts the innovation levels of agriculture-related listed enterprises. That said, the policy's effect varies across different regions and enterprise sizes. Furthermore, moderating-effect analysis reveals that the digitalisation level of agriculture-related listed enterprises is a critical factor, while the evolutionary game model elucidates this factor's underlying mechanism. Based on these findings, policy recommendations are proposed to further develop science and technology finance platforms for agricultural-related listed enterprises.

Countries are calling for a sustainable transition of agri-food systems due to the volatility of food security in the context of climate change, and the agricultural bioeconomy may be a more dependable solution. By capturing, coding, and displaying word clouds of Chinese agricultural bioeconomy policy texts, this study deconstructs the development framework of China's agricultural bioeconomy policies based on the agricultural biosystem dimension, the policy instrument dimension, and the comprehensive dimension. It concludes that there is a clear trend of sustainable transformation and cross-sectoral linkage in China's agricultural bioeconomy policies. Overall, China's agricultural bioeconomy policies have the following comprehensive features: first, the policy is deeply integrated, considering both economic development and environmental friendliness; second, the policy is safety-oriented, taking into account competitiveness and strategy; and third, the policy is innovation-driven, taking into account fundamentality and foresight. Efforts should be made in the future to enhance the competitiveness of the agricultural bioeconomy within the framework of an all-encompassing approach to food and to help China's agricultural bioeconomy on the road to sustainable transition by improving fiscal and tax support, advocating the use of financial instruments, creating an alliance for the agricultural bioeconomy, and promoting international trade exchanges and cooperation.

In the face of global challenges, innovative methods of production and consumption are vital, and the bioeconomy signifies a transformational shift based on biological processes, minimal energy use and full integration of resources into ecosystems. This study focused on a sectoral analysis of bioeconomy opportunities with a focus on bioenergy and waste management in an agriculture sustainable approach. Literature-based analysis was used to approach the research objectives of the roadmap design methods. A comprehensive sectoral analysis of the bioeconomy was conducted with a special emphasis on bioenergy and food security. A conditional roadmap of bioeconomy implementation clusters was presented, which is in line with global trends.  Agriculture, being an integral part of the bioeconomy, faces challenges due to ecosystem degradation, water scarcity, and poverty. The global trend of biotechnology adoption in agriculture offers benefits for sustainable bio-economic development, including soil conservation, cost reduction, job creation and improved food quality. Thus, the bioeconomy has significant potential to address global challenges and achieve sustainable development, which requires innovation, regional adaptation and a commitment to harmonise economic growth with environmental conservation. Further research into the involvement of the rural areas in the development of bioeconomy is required.

This study contributes to the limited body of research on mergers and acquisitions in primary agriculture by examining how large corporate agroholdings achieve profitable post-acquisition growth for the farms they acquire. Using System GMM estimation, we analyse farm-level data from 648 farms acquired by agroholdings in Ukraine between 2005 and 2016. Our findings show that agroholdings facilitate post-acquisition growth and performance improvements by employing several integration strategies. Specifically, they leverage horizontally integrated structures to: (i) consolidate land resources of acquired farms to achieve scale economies; (ii) reallocate farm resources toward more profitable production lines; and (iii) intensify production on acquired farms. These results support established firm growth theories, namely, the independence of firm growth rates from firm size (Gibrat's law) and the existence of Penrosean limits to growth.

Agricultural carbon emissions (ACE) is a critical contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, which have already become a common challenge for global carbon reduction. As a major agricultural producer and largest carbon emitter, China has made great efforts to reduce ACE. Using the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2022, this study explores the heterogeneous impacts of formal environmental regulations (FER) and informal environmental regulations (IER) on ACE. The results reveal that both FER and IER have significant effect on reducing ACE, with FER showing a more pronounced effect. The mechanism analysis indicates that agricultural technological innovation and planting structure adjustment play important mediating roles in this impact mechanism. The effect of FER is more remarkable in major grain producing areas than in non-major grain producing areas, while the effect of IER is completely opposite. Compared with coastal regions, both FER and IER have significant inhibitory effect on ACE in inland regions. Additionally, the marketisation level may reinforce the inhibitory effect of both FER and IER on ACE. Based on the empirical results, this study suggests to strengthen the synergistic effect of FER and IER, promote agricultural technology innovation, and formulate targeted policies according to regional differences.

Agricultural informatisation (AgI) is hailed as a 'game-changer' for farmers worldwide, even as climate change increases agriculture's vulnerability to climatic risks and threatens sustainable agrifood production. While AgI aspires to help alleviate hunger and poverty in smallholder farm households by improving on-farm productivity through the promotion of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs), limited empirical evidence exists on the AgI–SAPs nexus, particularly under severe environmental stress such as drought. We analysed data from a survey of maize farmers in central Zambia – a country exemplifying the impact of severe drought, declared a national emergency and disaster – to explore whether and how AgI can optimise SAP adoption and improve crop yields. Given the potential endogeneity of AgI adoption, we employed a recursive bivariate probit (RBP) and endogenous-treatment regression (ETR) to estimate the former and the latter, respectively. We focused on adoption portfolios of three AgI tools – radio, television and mobile phones – and five SAPs: minimum tillage, residue retention, planting basins, improved seed varieties and irrigation. The results reveal that AgI adoption significantly influences SAP adoption, with varying impacts across different AgI and SAP portfolios. Importantly, the adoption of productivity-enhancing SAPs, particularly improved seed and drip irrigation, produced the largest yield effects (124.46 g/capita/day) for AgI adopters. This increase potentially contributes 43.21% towards daily maize-supply quantity, which is crucial for helping households meet the minimum recommended daily caloric intake. The study therefore underscores that AgI plays a critical role in improving yields through SAP adoption, serving as a compelling pathway for agricultural resilience, especially under adverse climatic conditions. These insights align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those aimed at zero hunger, climate action and poverty alleviation, which advocate re-thinking and transforming food-production strategies.

In view of the increasing negative impacts of climate change, international cereal trade has become a growing concern. This study examines the impact of climate change on cereal exports. The analysis consists of two stages. In the first stage, we investigate convergence in cereal exports across countries and identify potential clusters of similar export behaviour. To this end, club convergence analysis was conducted using export data from 95 countries for the period 2000–2022. The results reveal that countries are grouped into seven distinct clubs, indicating shared convergence paths. In the second stage, the impact of climate change on the formation of these clubs is analysed using the ordered logit model. This model assesses how climatic factors influence a country's likelihood of belonging to a particular convergence club. The findings show that precipitation and carbon emissions significantly increase the likelihood of being in the top two clubs with high cereal trade. This suggests that climate change is a critical dynamic in shaping convergence clubs.

Land reforms can create tenure insecurity for farmers, a critical issue in developing countries with a dominant role of the state in agriculture. Our study focuses on Uzbekistan, characterised by a state-led transition from a more collective and socialist to a more individualistic and market-based approach to land allocation and management. To understand how farmers normalise tenure insecurity under land reallocation in Uzbekistan, we examine farmers' perceptions of tenure security under ongoing risks to their land tenure. We conducted a farm survey (n = 153), employing a novel approach to explore farmers' perceptions of tenure security and to elicit their preference patterns for key attributes of the land contract through a discrete choice experiment. We find that despite the institutionalisation of tenure insecurity, most farmers do not perceive it as a normal phenomenon. The choice model results show that farmers have the highest mean willingness to pay for contract security compared to other contract attributes. Our findings suggest that understanding and incorporating farmers' strong preference for secure land tenure is a crucial consideration for the design and implementation of land reform policies. Theoretically, our findings challenge the need for a dominant role of the state in agriculture.

Integrating farmers into the modern agricultural industrial system is key to sustaining rural household income growth. Based on field survey data from rural areas in three western Chinese provinces, this study uses an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model to analyse the impact of farmers' participation in agricultural supply chains on their income, and explores the heterogeneous effects of credit constraints and agricultural loans on the incomes of participating and non-participating farmers. The results show that supply chain participation significantly increases farmers' total and operational income, while driving the modernisation of agricultural production methods. Specifically, supply chain participation enables farmers to use agricultural loans efficiently to drive income growth and alleviate income constraints caused by credit restrictions. Furthermore, the positive effect of supply chain participation on operational income is more prominent, especially for low- and middle-income farmers. In contrast, the income-increasing benefits of agricultural loans are more pronounced among middle- and high-income farmers, reflecting differences in loan utilisation capacity across income groups.

Agriculture has lost its importance in many parts of the world, leaving peasants in a state of uncertainty regarding their social status and identity. This article uses both quantitative and qualitative data to present the changes experienced by Romanian peasants as a result of an entire series of processes which led to the loss of their place within society. Statistical data are used to illustrate the evolution of the most relevant agriculture-related indicators over the last three decades. Qualitative data are presented in order to explain how developments in agriculture were perceived by peasants. While the changes might be irreversible, the story of the 'old' class of peasants should constitute a starting point for redesigning national policies and avoiding the disintegration of an entire social class.

Economic globalisation (EG) in developing countries has continued to increase over the last 40 years. EG has both beneficial and harmful impacts on all sectors, including agriculture. This paper aims to determine the impact of EG on agriculture in developing countries. This aim was met by conducting a systematic review (SR) of 64 papers from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). EG has influenced various elements of agriculture in developing countries, including i) product, supply chain, food security, ii) trade, iii) economic, social, political element and environment and iv) technology and research and development (R&D). We propose several policies in this paper to maximise EG's positive impact while minimising its negative impact.

A choice experiment (CE) is a stated preference method to elicit the respondent's preference. The CE can predict consumer valuation for a hypothetical product's attributes. Many scholars have discussed the CE's design, analysis, reliability, and validity. Still, no scientific papers reviewed its application in agri-food studies in a broad spectrum, particularly in investigating food product categories and their attributes. Additionally, this review emphasises the technical aspects of CEs, such as the sample size, software, data analysis, and research implications. The result discovered that most CE studies are relevant to developed countries. Most reviewed studies observed wine and meat as objects in the CE studies, in the theme of health, food safety, origin, and sustainability. The future research trend was related to health benefits and natural ingredients. Thus, this review provides recommendations for future studies to explore consumer preference using CE in agri-food research.

The Turn of the month (ToM) effect is a calendar anomaly when the majority of returns of an asset are concentrated into several days around the end of the old month and the start of the new one. Until now, the investigation of the ToM effect has mainly been focused on the stock markets. However, this paper investigates the presence of the ToM effect in eight key agricultural commodity markets (cocoa, coffee, corn, cotton, rice, soybean, sugar, wheat), using three different alternatives of the ToM window, during the 2001–2021 time period. The results show a statistically significant ToM effect in the rice, coffee, and sugar markets. Further results show that the ToM pattern changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that, in the case of commodities with a statistically significant ToM effect, the ToM effect can be efficiently used to beat the buy & hold investment strategy convincingly.

The adverse economic and social effects of the recent increases in food prices have prompted policymakers and academics to reconsider the potential causes of such increases. This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the causal effects of oil prices, fertiliser prices, global economic activity, and geopolitical risk on international food price volatility between January 1993 and December 2021. The research considers the aggregate food price index and the prices of various specific foods, including cereal, vegetable oils, dairy, meat, and sugar. The Glosten, Jagannathan, and Runkle-generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (1,1) [GJR-GARCH(1,1)] model is employed to estimate the food price volatility series, while the causality-in-quantiles test is conducted to identify the drivers of food price volatility for different volatility regimes. The analysis suggests heterogeneous results regarding the significance of causal linkages. More specifically, the aggregate food price volatility is affected by oil prices, global economic activity, and geopolitical risk under different market conditions. The causality analysis also indicates that the volatility of cereal prices is the most sensitive to the four considered variables. Likewise, geopolitical risk is the most critical factor affecting all food commodities during almost all market conditions, while oil prices and global economic activity have limited predictive power. Finally, there is strong evidence that most causal linkages are confirmed during normal market conditions. Policy recommendations are subsequently derived.

In this study, a global agricultural trade network was constructed, and its topological characteristics from 1991 to 2021 were analysed. The influences of nine variables were empirically tested, including factor endowments and economic, geographical, and institutional factors. The research results show that the scale of trade networks is constantly expanding, and trade relations are becoming increasingly concentrated. Further, global agricultural trade patterns are gradually being reshaped. However, European economies and the United States still dominate the power of network control, with a clear ‘core-edge’ hierarchy. Among the factors influencing the global agricultural trade network, differences in arable land areas, agricultural product prices, geographical distances, and financial institutions have proven important. However, their influence varies. Compared to the differences in the endowments of other factors, the comparative advantage of agricultural trade in various nodes worldwide comes more from the arable land areas. The greater the difference in agricultural prices, the closer are the trade ties between nodes. Differences in geographical distance have proven conducive to establishing agricultural trade relations. Finally, the greater the difference in financial systems, the greater the likelihood that agricultural trade links will occur.

Prior studies have noted the importance of measurement tools that track the contributions of the circular bioeconomy and other developments towards sustainable development. In this study, we examined the EU-27 as a whole and found that its circular bioeconomy, measured by the 41 indicators we used, generally progressed over the period 2004–2021. Research and development personnel and Persons employed in circular economy sectors were ranked as the most progressing indicators over the studied period, together with Patent applications to the European Patent Office, which supports the idea that the circular bioeconomy uses novel technologies and requires research to develop them.

The standard economic price theory of working with efficient source allocation is being confronted with a series of empirical findings of asymmetric price responses. The objective of the research was to examine whether the distribution of prices within the dairy chain in the Czech Republic was fair and whether farmers progressed in a collective approach to strengthen their position in the supply chain. We used the pre-cointegration and cointegration approach to test for asymmetry in the transmission of farm milk prices throughout the supply chain. Furthermore, we measured the development of market concentration by means of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index and discussed the background of the figures with producer organisation representatives. The results proved there were asymmetric price transmissions. In response, farmers consolidated and concentrated their milk sales. The concentration should not yet be understood as a goal but as a means to the next steps.

This paper investigates the influences of macroeconomic policies on agricultural production and other factors affecting it, based on panel data in a global sample for the period 2010-2017. Because spatial interactions in the agricultural production levels of countries are determined, spatial panel models are employed in the analyses. According to the analysis results, countries' financial, fiscal and monetary policies have an important effect on agricultural production. Besides, other important determinants of agricultural production are climatic conditions, land use and modern input use in agriculture. Our findings have important implications, especially for countries with low agricultural production.

Sustainable development is a concept that is constantly evolving, being discussed at the global, national, and local levels, not only among individuals but also within organisations. However, the importance of this concept lies in its complexity. The article's main goal is to identify the approaches of selected Czech companies to promote the concept of sustainable development and evaluate the basic factors that impact competitiveness. The data were obtained based on quantitative research (questionnaire survey of data collection) in selected organisations (n = 179) and additional qualitative research in the form of individual interviews with representatives of agricultural enterprises (n = 8). Data were processed using chi-square tests and factor analysis to identify latent variables. Key approaches to promoting the concept of sustainable development include an emphasis on process approach, non-financial business performance, and sector stability. The basic factors for competitiveness are quality relationships with stakeholders and the implementation of an integrated management system.

This research aims to analyse customers' preference heterogeneity for rural tourism in Spain and explore their preferences' personal and socio-demographic factors. To achieve this purpose, latent class analysis with the best-worst choice modelling has been applied through conducting a survey on 452 customers in Madrid and Barcelona. The results show that there are five classes in the Spanish rural tourism market: 'all-around seeker', 'leisure activist', 'culture explorer', 'comfort-driven user', and 'basic value pursuer'. The contribution of this investigation is that it is the first study that applied the latent class analysis with best-worst choice modelling to explore customers' preference heterogeneity for rural tourism.

Case study research plays a crucial role in studying the development of the bioeconomy. The versatility of the empirical method coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the bioeconomy concept requires a consistent and comparable application of the method to obtain valid and generalizable results. To stimulate such systematization, we first need to know the state of case studies in bioeconomy research. This article reviews the recent literature with a qualitative content analysis facilitated by systematic text coding. Our results provide an overview of how the narratives of the concept of bioeconomy affect the versatility of the case study research. Based on the low density of the illustrated semantic networks, we conclude that future empirical research on bio-based phenomena should be more transdisciplinary and rely more on cross-sectoral approaches. Further work is also required in developing common research protocols that support transparency and replicability of case studies in the bioeconomy.

In this paper, we evaluate the downside risk of six major agricultural commodities - corn, wheat, soybeans, soybean meal, soybean oil and oats. For research purposes, we first use an optimal generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model to create residuals, which we later use for measuring downside risks via parametric and semiparametric approaches. Modified value-at-risk (mVaR) and modified conditional value-at-risk (mCVaR) provide more accurate downside risk results than do ordinary value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). We report that soybean oil has the lowest mVaR and mCVaR because it has two very favourable features - skewness around zero and low kurtosis. The second-best commodity is soybeans. The worst-performing downside risk results are in wheat and oats, primarily because of their very high kurtosis values. On the basis of the results, we propose to investors and various agents involved with these agricultural assets that they reduce the risk of loss by combining these assets with other financial or commodity assets that have low risk.

This study uses an extended gravity model to examine the determinants, efficiency and potential of agri-food exports from Nigeria to the EU for the 1995-2019 period. It uses a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to estimate the extended gravity model. The results show that the economic size (GDP) of Nigeria and the EU countries, as well as bilateral distance, positively determine agri-food exports from Nigeria to the EU. Also, the results show that Nigeria's agri-food exports to the EU are negatively determined by the income (per capita GDP) of Nigeria and its EU trading countries, bilateral exchange rate and EU new member states (NMS). The results further show that Nigeria scores relatively low in terms of the efficiency of its agri-food exports to the EU countries. On a final note, the study shows that Nigeria's agri-food exports with the EU have a relatively large potential that has not been exploited. We document policy recommendations in this study.

The purpose of this study is to examine the interrelationships among the variables of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of agrarian management, innovative work behaviour (IWB) of employees, knowledge-based dynamic capabilities (KBDC) and innovative performance (IP) of agrarian enterprises. We analysed not only direct effects but also the possibilities of mediating these effects to increase the overall effect on IP. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from managers of agribusinesses in Slovakia (175 respondents). We used the partial least squares structural equation modelling method and the appropriate software to test the theoretical research model and the proposed hypotheses to examine the relationships among the individual selected constructs in more depth. The findings point to the existence of a statistically significant relationship between EO and IP, which, however, is weaker than the overall effect of the involvement of mediation variables. Each mediation variable (IWB and KBDC) increases the overall effect separately, but their joint mediation action is of the greatest importance, when full mediation takes place. The strength of the relationship between the two main variables is also influenced by the size of the agrarian enterprise such that being larger has a negative moderation effect. Significant differences were also identified in the legal forms of business in favour of companies over agricultural co-operatives (ACs).

This article presents changes in the prices of milk and other dairy products in the European Union (EU). First, the descriptive statistics of the prices of milk and dairy products are presented, and then correlation and regression analyses were conducted to measure the relationships between the prices. We used the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test and generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model to measure the stationarity and changes in dairy product prices in the EU. At the EU level, we checked the changes in prices of butter, skim milk powder, whole milk powder, Cheddar, Edam, Gouda, Emmental and whey powder. Our analysis confirmed that the butter, skim milk powder, whole milk powder, Cheddar, Edam and Gouda processes depend on previous values. The biggest price changes were observed in whey powder (34.12%), butter (24.46%) and skim milk powder (21.78%).

The aim of the paper is to explain beef consumption through the economic indicators and the prediction tendencies of beef consumption. There are countries like Slovakia that confirm the opposite trend despite the global trend of consumption growth. In terms of the ecosystems' sustainability, beef production should be adjusted accordingly, as in the case of Slovakia. We focus on the economic aspect of beef consumption from the perspective of sustainability. Commodity prices are considered to be a significant factor influencing consumption and the behaviour of beef consumers. Despite increasing income in Slovakia, consumption of beef covers only 30% of recommended doses in the year 2018. To achieve the objective of the research, we decided to use the calculation of price and income elasticity of food demand using the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model to analyse meat consumption trends. The findings confirm that beef consumption will decline in Slovakia in the following years, and it will be progressively replaced by pork and poultry meat.

This article investigates the connections among the prices of biofuels, agricultural commodities and other relevant assets in Europe, the US, and Brazil. The analysis includes a comprehensive data set covering price data for 38 traded titles during the period from 2003 to 2020. We used the minimum spanning tree (MST) approach to identify price connections in a complex trading system. Our analysis of mutual price connections reveals the major defining features of world-leading biofuel markets. We provide the characteristics of the main bioethanol and biodiesel markets with respect to government policies and technical and local features of the production and consumption of particular biofuels. Despite a relatively long and dynamically evolving history of biofuels, the biofuel systems in the US, Brazil and Europe do not converge toward the same pattern of relations among fossil fuels, biofuels, agricultural commodities and financial assets.

This study focuses on evaluating the technical efficiency (TE) of food and drink companies in the Czech Republic and on finding its determinants. The analysis is based on the data of 597 firms and uses the stochastic frontier method. We have identified the key players in the market and the less effective groups of processors. Foreign-owned companies have a strong position because of a better economy, but the results showed that their efficiency is comparable with that of Czech-owned companies. The results helped confirm that the size of the company influences its TE. The lowest efficiency was observed in small companies. TE also differed among branches of the food industry. The highest efficiency was in the bakery and milk industries, and the lowest efficiency was in fruit and vegetable processing. Subsidised firms reached a significantly higher efficiency. With respect to economic results, there is still a need to improve competitiveness through investments.