Such a transition mainly entails full decarbonisation and reduction of all GHG emissions down to a very low level ( Prieve, 2022). Lately, the European Commission promoted the ecologic (or green) transition thanks to the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies, all aimed to make agri-food system more sustainable ( Dupraz, 2020 Schebesta and Candel, 2020). In order to push the transition toward global sustainable food systems and models, United Nations Member States approved the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, revolving around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It follows that not only the agri-food sector negatively impacts on the environment but it also increasingly suffers from the main consequences of climate change, that could irremediably affect biodiversity, soil fertility, and last but not least, food security ( Chandio et al., 2020). Moreover, it is estimated that 85% of projected losses in biodiversity will be caused by agriculture and forestry ( Vazquez-Brust et al., 2020). In the last decades, greenhouse gas emissions from agri-food systems have increased of around 20%, accounting for about 30% of all emissions related to human activities in 2019 ( FAO, 2022). However, producers are not available to limit their decisional autonomy in unilateral agreement with buyers and they reveal a certain indifference to costly production techniques aimed to improve environmental sustainability. Results and discussion: Findings provide interesting indications, revealing a strong farmers' willingness to adhere production contracts in exchange for price stability and knowledge transfer offered by technical assistance services. A choice experiment is carried out among durum wheat producers in Italy and mixed logit estimations assuming heterogeneous preferences are performed. Thus, we analyze farmers' preferences for different contractual clauses in the cereal sector. Methods: In this framework, contract design assumes a key importance.

Under the lens of the Neo Institutional Economics, we focus on production contracts and their clauses which, in turn, perform different functions and contribute to allocate property and decision rights, in the attempt to conciliate sustainability and food security.

Moreover, new sources of uncertainty related to pandemic and geo-political turbulences put further pressures on economic agents, calling for proper and resilient governance mechanisms. Introduction: Under an increasing demand from citizen and public institutions, agri-food supply chains are requested to comply with stringent environmental requirements.

Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy.

Stefano Ciliberti *, Angelo Frascarelli and Gaetano Martino

Cereal allowed on wic