Italian social farming: The network of coldiretti and campagna amica

For the last ten years, Social farming (SF) has become an innovative practice able to connect multifunctional agriculture and novel social services for urban and rural areas in Italy and the EU. By looking at the experience from Italy, it is possible to note that SF has not developed homogeneously along the national territory. It is characterized by a wide range of practices and activities related to the development of a welfare in which several topics such as subsidiarity, the value of relationship, and co-production find multiple meanings and applications. This paper provides a further contribution to the knowledge on this type of activity and opens the way to deeper considerations on the topic. The information reported in this study refers to a project born in 2018 and carried out by Fondazione Campagna Amica, a foundation promoted by Coldiretti, the main organization of agricultural entrepreneurs in Italy. This paper focuses on the analysis of data collected during this project, through in-depth interviews carried out from July 2018 to March 2019 among 229 agricultural enterprises, as well as meetings with representatives of the regional offices of Coldiretti that are involved in SF. This study aims to reach a better understanding of the development of SF in Italy through the perspective of a national network of farmers and to compare SF practices across regions in order to examine their similarities and differences. The most important results show big individual farms with a great variety of agricultural activities and livestock systems, with a clear predominance of horticulture. These SF farms mainly provide direct sales and educational activities and are involved in training and job placement services.