The Role of Education in the Transition towards Sustainable Agriculture: A Family Farm Learning Perspective

Elisa Maini, Marcello De Rosa and Yari Vecchio
Additional contact information
Elisa Maini: Department of Economics and Law, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, 03043 Cassino, Italy
Marcello De Rosa: Department of Economics and Law, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, 03043 Cassino, Italy
Yari Vecchio: Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-11

Abstract: This paper deals with the analysis of decision-making processes at the family-farm level with reference to the transition towards sustainable agriculture. Despite literature that has underlined the relevance of education in strategic decision making, less attention has been devoted to the (family) collective decision-making process by taking into account the maximum level of education of the family members regardless of the position and whether they are the manager of the family farm or not. Therefore, this paper tries to fill a gap in literature by emphasizing the family farm’s collective decision-making process. In order to empirically measure this relevance, an econometric model was carried out that allowed us to evidence clear differences in the transition paths among various typologies of family farms on the basis of the level of education. Our results confirm the impact of education at the collective family level on transition towards more sustainable agricultural practices. This is particularly true in remote rural areas, where the transition is realized with higher intensity with respect to other territorial contexts. This brings about policy implications on enskilling farmers and upgrading their level of human capital.

Keywords: family farms; education; sustainable agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/14/8099/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/14/8099/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:14:p:8099-:d:597743

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().