Il ruolo dei Consorzi di Difesa nella gestione delle assicurazioni agricole in Italia: una valutazione dei benefici economici di alcuni servizi offerti ai soci

Most types of agricultural insurance in Italy is managed by Consorsi di Difesa (CdD). These are farm cooperatives providing several services to their members. This paper estimates the benefits that are generated for farmers by the following three services: collective bargaining with insurance companies, consultancy regarding the choice of the insurance contracts; financial anticipation. The proposed approach is applied to a specific consortium allowing comparison of the amount of benefits and the costs incurred by the associated farmers. The analysis highlights that the proposed approach can be used to get a preliminary estimate of the benefits of the services considered and of the net benefits generated by CdDs to their members. In the case study considered, the extent of the benefits exceeds the costs incurred by the members. Therefore, the CdD clearly generates net benefits for them. However, there is a need to overcome some of the limitations of the proposed approach and to apply it to other realities in order to test its validity and to assess whether these positive results can also be found in other CdDs.