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This paper aims to evaluate the technical efficiency and the total factor productivity change of dairy farms in EU countries. Analyses were carried out in order to determine which countries showed the best performance adaptations when the quota regime was relaxed and to evaluate the technical conditions of European farmers at the starting point of the new regime (milk quota abolition). A data envelopment analysis (DEA) was applied on aggregate data related to 22 European countries for the period from 2004 to 2012. The findings suggest that milk farms show small scope for improving efficiency using their own technical input. The estimation of total factor productivity and its components suggest that the European milk sector has suffered a decline in productivity. This means that external factors, independent of the farmers' capacity to use technical inputs, can play a greater role than efficiency in conditioning productivity and profitability in the near future.

This paper examines the current setting of instruments aimed at rebalancing unequal market power in the food chain. Particular attention is given to horizontal integration possibilities for farmers, and organisations of farmers, as derogations to competition policies contained in the Common Market Organisation Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 (CMO Regulation). Firstly, we propose a review of the literature that looks at the imperfect price transmission along the food chain. Secondly, we examine how CAP of instruments aimed at counterbalancing market inequalities along the chain have been functioning over time, notably if they contributed to improving efficiency, farmers' income and consumers' welfare. Thirdly, we assess the current setting of the CMO Regulation, in particular, the way derogations to the competition policy are defined (exclusions, e.g. producer's organisations). The main research question here is if the current setting does, or does not, allow attaining the objective of strengthening the bargaining power of producers, while at the same time avoiding the creation of monopoly power. Our research highlights that divergent results emerged from studies on the relation between size and profitability or efficiency, with evidence of significant economies of scale. Larger PO not only would be more profitable, but they also may offer more services to their members, especially when these services are associated with significant investment costs. In relation to policy measures aimed at improving the functioning of the food supply chain, the CMO Regulation relies on producer's organisations as the main vehicle for producer cooperation. But the new legislative setting could lead to the paradoxical consequence of impeding the functioning by challenging the existence and/or creation of POs.

This study aims at assessing if benefits, based on the economic performance of farms operating in an agro-food supply chain, are generated by a vertical coordination. A panel data (2008-2011) of durum wheat producers was used, namely the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). Outcomes of coordinated and non-coordinated farms with equal farm and farmer characteristics were calculated through different economic performance measures. A propensity score-matching model was implemented to take account of the selection bias due to observed individual heterogeneity. The comparisons of average differences in farm economic performance indexes, including costs and profitability, show a coordination premium in competitiveness and profitability of Italian durum wheat farms.

CAP regulation of sugar sector has frequently been questioned because of its potential effect on competition. In 2006 the CAP reform of the sugar sector established a relevant break in policy trend with potential albeit untargeted effects on price transmission. In 2012 DG AGRI commissioned a study to assess the effects of the 2006 reform of the EU sugar regime on the price transmission within the sugar sector. This paper highlights the effects of the new CAP sugar regime on sugar retail price and on the degree of competition and concentration in the sugar industry. Vertical price transmission is tested through econometric models. The relationship between concentration and competition is analysed putting in relation the concentration index and a modified version of the Lerner index. Results of empirical investigation show that vertical price transmission asymmetries still exist after the reform, which in turn contributed to increase sugar sector concentration, partly confirming the validity of the Structure-Conduct-Performance assumptions. The sugar market is far from efficient and the reform only created more favourable conditions for its improvement.

During the 52nd Conference of the Italian Society of Agricultural Economists (SIDEA), Italian agricultural economists have been given the opportunity to debate regarding internationalization, competition, and local development in agri-food systems. This special issue of the journal AFE contains four selected papers presented in this conference. These papers focus on three main issues that are strongly affecting the evolution of food supply-chains and their functioning mechanisms. These are the growing role of vertical integration between the farm sector and the downstream sectors, the possibility for farmers to increase their horizontal integration and the role of agricultural policies in affecting these phenomena. The reading of these papers allow for a better understanding of what is affecting the competitiveness of the EU agro-food system, the distribution of the bargaining power along the value-chain and, at the end, the efficiency and economic performances of the EU farm sector.