Did E-commerce Increase Agriculture Firms’ Profitability During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Almost all economic sectors suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic and many companies survived, or even increased profits, thanks to e-commerce. Agriculture, that tends to follow a traditional business model neglecting internet, reported notable losses in 2020. As always, not all the farms suffered to the same extent, so the goal of the empirical analysis presented in this study is to test whether owning a website from which the production could be sold directly helped firms making profits. Based on a sample of Italian firms located in Emilia Romagna region, no influence on profits of owning a website is detected, but the most important factor turns out to be the number of employees. However, this analysis is very limited and further research is needed.