Social Farming - Sustainable Development

Problem: sustainability of agriculture

Solution:integration of agri-food value-chain -very tight integration between agricultural production and culture:moving from the production of agricultural commodities to an integrated supply chain aimed at exporting agro-gastronomic culture and lifestyle.Value-chain innovations, focused more on process development than on product development, are designed to develop sustainable business models by addressing context-specific issues that meet both economic and social objectives.  Responsible innovation is increasingly being viewed by firms as a corporate and strategic necessity to ensure long-termsustainability.

Changes in lives:

Thus, social agriculture is characterized by a multifunctional role
combining the traditional productive function with the ability to
generate benefits for vulnerable people. Providing innovative services,
it can effectively respond to the crisis of traditional social
assistance systems and the growing demand for personalization and
qualification of social and cultural services.

The current dominant supply chain is based on a linear model of short-term partnerships independent from the influence and interests of other members of the chain (suppliers, processors, retailers, and consumer). Thus, price is the only parameter of evaluation. This model results highly inefficient with inability to respond to changes in supply and demand dynamics, with wasteful processes and environmental and social degradation.

A system of creating value requires closer cooperation and interaction between all stakeholders. Thus, the development of an agrifood value-chain depends on natural resources, human resources and their interactions representing the sustainability of the system.

Food sovereignty and agroecology require the reconnection of the concepts of food and agriculture beyond geographical distance. Interests and collaborations from agreements between the main stakeholders about biodiversity of agricultural and food are defined as “food communities”. That is biodiversity is not just a reserve but a value to be integrated into the socio-economic territory. 

Briefly, sustainable agroecological models, including agro-biodiversity and social farming, need to be developed and embedded in an enabling socio-political and economic context leading to the concept of corporate responsibility. 

Social farming for sustainable development

The main idea is based on the role of sustainability as interaction between natural territory and economic territory that is market.Thus, this idea of sustainability includes the differentiation and recovery of biodiversity.  Biodiversity is the variety of life and its processes: links between living organisms, ecosystems and landscapes: 

a) biodiversity of products based on genetic diversity - the variety of genetic among individual representatives of a species;

b) biodiversity of agro-ecosystems, based on the variety of ecosystem diversity, that is the variety of species and ecological functions and processes;

c) biodiversity of culture, based on historical process of accumulation of human stock, heritage, leading to the capability to use and manipulate the biodiversity and a sustainable respect of the ecosystem.

according to this economic model, the development of an agrifood value-chain depends on natural resources available (i.e., climate, agro-biodiversity, etc.), human resources (both managerial ability and service accessibility) and their interaction that represents the sustainability of the economic system. Indeed, the interaction between these resources shows whether the system will remain stable over the years.

Applying it to the agrifood value-chain, territorial assets and socio-technological assets are the areas to interact

The trend of global urbanisation is in full swing, with the last 100 years seeing remarkable change in attitudes to city life. In the past, urban living was an infrequent occurrence; for instance, in 1900 only 15% of the globe’s population resided in cities. In 2008 over half of the world’s population lived in urbanised conurbations (UN, 2014). The trend sees no end at least in the medium term as current projections suggest 60% of the world’s population to be urban by 2030. In 2017, as many as 26 of the 33 megacities were in developing countries. Indeed, developing countries will dominate the megacity scene over 2030, adding five of the six new megacities in the period. African megacities will lead population growth, reflecting its position as the last major continent to undergo urbanisation. Almost all urban dwellers are net buyers of food but not supplied by local small-scale farmers. In developing countries, on the other hand, access to food due to inadequate infrastructure can be a major problem.

Thus, the mission of our model is to organize an integrated agrifood supply chains to guarantee food access.

agro-food experience and the deep bond between food, landscape, identity and culture (from farming tosocial-farming). Food and culture, as an inspiration for a life's work:http://www.fao.org/news/story/...

Innovation to make the social agri-food value-chain to stand out:

1. Diet+Technology: FoodOmic approach. connecting agro-environment and human physiology.

2. Environment + Economics: Culture for the socio-economic
   development of urban and rural areas; conservation of biodiversity and adaptation to climate change.

3. Technology + Culture in Genetics: Evolutive populations
   

4. Economics + Culture: Cultural Heritage and Food as foundations of cultural identity. Rural Territory as a Community of consumers; social agri-food value-chain as intangible heritage;

The industrial type of agriculture, of which genetically modified crops

are the most recent aspect, led to an extension of monocultures, to a
significant loss of agro-biodiversity and to accelerated soil erosion.
Resilience and sustainability must be designed to replace the
productivist paradigm and, thus, better support the full realization of
the right to adequate food. Thus, evolutionary plant breeding consists
in planting in farmers’ field mixtures (evolutionary populations) of
very many different genotypes of the same crop, preferably, but not
necessarily, using early segregating generations. This approach
reconciles agro-biodiversity, sustainable production and adaptation to
climate change as a result of the evolutionary process.

Evolutive population will be based on selection of populations of

antique varieties/species and wild /alimurgic herbs. Alimurgic herbs or
Herbs for survival. The Florentine medical doctor Giovanni
Targioni-Tozzetti back to 1767 was the first publication dealing with
the use of vegetables to eat during famines. The work titled "De urgent
food" and "Alimurgia" subtitle (De alimenti urgentia e sottotitolo
Alimurgia), that is, how to reduce the famines proposed for the relief
of populations. Alimurgic herbs are studied by the ethnobotany  that is
the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the
traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. The local customs
involves the practical uses of local flora for many aspects of life,
such as plants as medicines, foods, and clothing.

Foodomics is the comprehensive, high-throughput approach for the
exploitation of food science in the light of an improvement of human
nutrition, the optimization of human health and well-being. Thus the
agricultural production will be integrated into a discipline that
studies the Food and Nutrition domains through the application and
integration of advanced -omics technologies to improve consumer's
well-being, health, and knowledge. In an economic vision, not only
agricultural products will be produced but an integrated supply chain
with human well-being, that is, a lifestyle

Foodomics

International Conference on Sustainable Development

AlmaverdeBio

10000

application to Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems" (GIAHS) are outstanding landscapes of aesthetic beauty that combine agricultural

biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural heritage.
Located in specific sites around the world, they sustainably provide
multiple goods and services, food and livelihood security for millions
of small-scale farmers.

finance and time to assest the organization

integrate the team with a commercial manager

5

Apofruit

CasArtusi

to compare our project in an international arena / scenario