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Full Length
Research Paper
The role of education, knowledge and human resources for the
agricultural development in the perspective of new CAP: an
hypothesis of change in Basilicata
Contò Francesco1, Fiore Mariantonietta2*,
La Sala Piermichele3, Papapietro Paolo4
1University
of Foggia, DSEMS, Largo Papa Giovanni Paolo II, 71100,
Foggia, Italy.
2University
of Foggia, DSEMS, Largo Papa Giovanni Paolo II, 71100,
Foggia, Italy.
3University
of Basilicata, DITEC, Via dell’Ateneo Lucano n.10, 85100,
Potenza, Italy.
4University
of Bari, Diritto Privato, Piazza Umberto I° n.1, 70121 Bari,
Italy.
*Corresponding Author E-mail:
m.fiore@unifg.it
Received 26 October, 2011; Accepted 04 November, 2011
Within the reform of both ‘CAP’ and ‘Europe 2020’ programs,
and in line with the Lisbon Strategy, the role of education,
knowledge and human resources in the agribusiness becomes of
primary importance for the development of agricultural
sector and, more generally, of the territory.
These changes require policy-makers to identify possible
strategies in order to face the ongoing agricultural crisis
which can be considered both structural and economic. The
main objective of the present paper is to verify the role of
investment in human resources and, consequently, in services
for the agricultural development for the dynamics of rural
development, trade and international cooperation of
agribusiness. After a literature review about the investment
in education and knowledge within the policies for
agricultural development, the paper firstly analyses the
characteristics of the Italian Region of Basilicata,
selected for our empirical application, and secondly
develops an econometric model to explain the relationship
between the rural GDP and a set of economic variables and of
network-education-social (NES) dummy variable. These NES is
representative of social, educational and, network factors,
describing the degree of openness of the region firm (such
as schooling of entrepreneurs, training, association to
districts, cluster or network, collaboration with experts
and specialists in the field, professional associations,
etc.). As expected, the results show that farmers may act as
engines for economic development when they are trained on
the basis of the needs and requirements related to
innovation and research, and they are assisted through new
models of organization of agricultural services. Our
findings can be useful for designing possible strategies of
development to support the local governance in identifying a
new type of farmer and agricultural model.
Keywords: Development services, human resource,
knowledge, education rural development.
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