Methodological Proposals for a Qualitative Evaluation of Italian Durum Wheat Varieties

In the complex frame of the EU agriculture politics, a particular relevant aspect is given by the new regulation on durum wheat production and diffusion incentives. These subsidies are assigned according to a particular indicator (Quality Global Index - QGI), built up through a weighted mean of four qualitative parameters. However, the actual method used to evaluate QGI could not be statistically correct. In this work we propose, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view, a comparison between the actual method and a series of alternative ones. A particular emphasis is given to a normalisation criterion, modified in order to properly take into account the asymmetry level observed on the four parameters empiric distributions.