Efstratia Arampatzi, Martijn Burger, Spyridon Stavropoulos (p), Frank van Oort

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Susana Campos, Lívia Madureira (p)

This paper focus on the theme of the relationship between consumer choices and food attributes with the aim of verifying whether consumers continue to prefer healthy foodstuffs to the degree that this can guarantee a premium price necessary for the economic sustainability its production. The development of a sustainable economy involves a complex system in which agriculture plays a relevant role and has a strong impact on the environment, human health and social order. There is a strong relationship between the food we eat and our health, but there is a need for sustainable production so that society is also healthier. To date there are no studies directly related to WTP for health benefits in food. It is important to understand how consumers’ value established natural healthy foodstuffs (e.g. Mediterranean diet) in comparison with biotechnological achieved, such as functional food and similar ones. And, on the other hand in the case, of the former, if the value assigned by consumers increases (or not) when other attributes are there, such as an ecological responsible production and an acknowledged local-origin.
The results on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for healthy food attributes are also important for all stakeholders in the food chain; producers, retailers, and food vendors to help build consumer confidence in general. The results of WTP will help to make an informed decision on the attributes that the consumer values most, helping local producers to develop innovative but at the same time sustainable ideas. This will help rural development and the design and implementation of programs to connect producers and consumers. It will also help to improve the long-term productivity and diversity of rural production.
This paper aims to summarize the extant literature’s through a meta-analysis of consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for healthy food attributes. It is the central interest of this paper to explain the variations of WTP estimates using meta-regression techniques. This paper will contribute to the literature by providing insights on what the consumer acknowledges and values as a healthy foodstuff and if other sustainability concerns, such an ecological production mode and the contribution to the preservation of local landscape are as well acknowledged and valued by consumers as attributes of a healthy foodstuff.

Giulia Pesaro (p), Angela Colucci

Over time, an increasing number of institutions, both public and private bodies, are investing in resilience of communities and territories, supporting and funding local based practices and actions. The Resilience Practices Observatory (RPO) is one of such actions. Launched in April 2015, funded by Fondazione Cariplo, an Italian private bank foundation, and coordinated by DAStU Politecnico di Milano, the Observatory takes as its overall strategic objective the enhancement of territorial resilience through the strengthening of resilience practices. This mainly by way of: collection and interpretation of practices; activities aiming at promoting innovation in methods, tools and design criteria; activities supporting the dissemination of resilience practices from a cultural and methodological perspective.
Inside the RPO activities, a specific working space has been devoted to the analysis and understanding of the role, functions and contribution of economy approaches and toolboxes in enhancing the feasibility of resilience practices and, more generally speaking, in contributing to social and territorial resilience in the long-run.
The essay first offers a brief introduction to the RPO working experience, which, in these two years, based on a strong interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, proved to be successful and able to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the resilience implementation from the operational perspective and to envisage innovative tools to be applied in a new generation of multipurpose projects.
Then, the issue of the role of the economic disciplinary perspectives will be introduced, highlighting the reasons why economic thinking approaches, factors, criteria and toolboxes should be better considered as potentials in territorial resilience practices design and diffusion.
The reading of the practices also demonstrated, however, how difficult it is to effectively integrate economic elements into the resilience practices. From the one side, it seems that, at least at present, subjects working on resilience only seldom consider the development of new production/consumption models and the related territorial values as main action goals. From the other side, in project design teams, the economic culture and skills are many times lacking, which explains in many cases the reasons of the poor economic contents.
In the final part of the essay, methodological and operational factors will hence be discussed, which may contribute to better integrate the economic thinking and toolboxs in new innovative resilience practices and policies. Practices to be considered as effective opportunities to take better advantage of the available territorial capital of resources, in a sustainable development perspective and in the long-run.