Strategies for the valorization of sustainable productions through an organic district model

ABSTRACT

The debate around Organic Agriculture, Agroecology, and Alternative Food Networks shows that sustainable food systems have to be socially sustainable, economically attractive for producers and valuable for consumers, as well as environmentally friendly. This paper presents an ongoing project regarding an organic district in the Province of Parma in Italy, modeled as an Agroecology and a Local Agri-food System (ALAS), which is based on the integration of organic agriculture techniques with agroecology principles. To this aim, the main issues faced by the paper are: i) how to valorize local organic and agroecological products, ii) how to increase the environmental sustainability and produce public goods for local citizens and consumers, iii) how to be inclusive, bringing together different types of organic farmers. The Parma organic district case study shows to be the evolution of the concept of organic district toward a comprehensive definition of sustainability, ranging from environmental concerns to socio and economic issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Agroecology
• organic district
• quality scheme
• local agri-food system
• local development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Liguria (L.R. 66/2009) and Tuscany (L.R. 51/2019).

2. Regional Law no. 7 of 4th March 1998.

3. According to the IFOAM definition (2008), Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) are “locally-focused quality assurance systems. They certify producers based on active participation of stakeholders and are built on a foundation of trust, social networks, and knowledge exchange” (Willer et al. 2019, 161)

4. More details on the stakeholders’ interviews are available in Guareschi et al. (2020).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant.