In recent years, after the publication of Regulation (EU) 2018/848 on organic production and the labelling of organic products, all stakeholders have been considering threats and opportunities in the development of the organic food and beverage sector. The aim of the study outlined in this paper was to analyse the development prospects of the Italian organic wine sector in light of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) environmental and climate objectives. Specifically, the study focussed on applying a System Dynamics Approach (SDA) and a Network Analysis in order to explain how the most relevant social–economic determinants of the national organic wine sector are in all likelihood influencing the hoped-for shift from conventional to organic production. Such conversion appeared to be worth exploring because, despite the increasing global demand for organic wine, the economic effects on the entire system are still somewhat unclear from a dynamic perspective. The results of the study clearly demonstrated that public policies and regulatory actions at the national and European level will continue to be very influential for the future of the national organic wine system. Different development pathways, such as groups of operators and the adoption of the new national certification system for the sustainability of the entire wine supply chain, should be undertaken by Italian “small wine operators” in order to gain international markets.

The adoption of rare, traditional crops represents a good example of enhancing functional agrobiodiversity, not only to provide benefits for farmers but also for society as a whole. The study outlined in this paper aims to verify how and under local social-ecological conditions the combination of organic cereal farming and growing of durum wheat landraces can be profitably applied. Focusing on Sicily as one of the most developed cereal systems existing in southern Italy, the study deployed a comparison between data from the regional dataset by the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) and the data provided by the Association of farmers called Simenza. Thereafter, we used a System Dynamics Approach (SDA) for a better understanding of the main drivers which will most likely affect the profitability of the system in the medium and long term. The results clearly demonstrated how the durum wheat organic system under investigation might still develop under the push of an increasing relative economic advantage between standard varieties and landraces.

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Article 19(4) of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 provides that business start-up aid for young farmers, non-agricultural activities in rural areas and the development of small farms shall be conditional on the submission of a business plan.Therefore, this tool, also known as Farm Development Plan (FDP), is mandatory to verify the economic improvement of an investment under sub-measures 6.1 "Business start up aid for young farmers", 4.1 "Investments in agricultural holdings" and operation 6.4.a "Investments in creation and development of non-agricultural activities" so that rural development resources can be directed towards those project ideas which are consistent with the objectives and purposes of the rural development strategy and, thanks to the support, have the highest probability of success. The article presents the lesson learned from the Sicilian experience of designing a web-based tool for FDP submission, namely "PSAWeb Sicilia". This device allowed the Managing Authority (MA) of RDP Sicily 2014-2020 to make available an FDP scheme to users in compliance with EU obligations, consistent with the objectives and purposes of the Programme, as well as with the implementing and procedural provisions of regional calls. The computerised management of the FDPs ensured better coordination between the offices responsible for verifying and evaluating the proposals, while processing and analysis of aggregated data from over 8,400 business plans provided an in-depth knowledge of the investment needs in Sicilian agriculture and a better capacity to forecast the RDP potential response as well as some aspects of specific interest to the regional agricultural system. Thanks to PSAWeb Sicilia, in fact, a large amount of data at farm, sectoral, territorial and type of investment level was collected providing information of inestimable value not available from other data sources. The assessment of access requirements in terms of farms' economic size, economic-financial viability and profitability was ensured by borrowing principles and procedures from the Italian FADN. The cooperation between the MA and CREA-PB achieved several results. Firstly, the data collected combined with the monitoring data have been made available for the evaluation activity and for the communication to the public of the RDP implementation. This information will also be very useful both for better targeting interventions in 2021-22 and for reprogramming them in the future cap. Finally, as a positive externality, the use of the application has contributed to increasing accounting knowledge among operators and technicians in the agricultural sector, so that it has become a teaching tool in some university courses.