LIBRI DI GIANLUCA BRUNORI

The recent increase in the number of people asking for food assistance and the expansion of the so-called ‘emergency food system’ in High Income Countries have given rise to an academic debate on both the re-emergence of food insecurity as a policy issue and the best solution to cope with it. When food/agriculture policies ignore household-level food security, welfare policy has the potential to intervene through anti-poverty measures. But when even these are not available for food insecure people, then the task of providing food assistance switches to charitable organisations. Even if they have been existing for many years, what is changing now is the scale and logistics of food assistance delivery. Food assistance initiatives differ greatly from each other in terms of eligibility criteria, food handling operations, amount and quality of food distributed, supplementary services offered and monitoring activities. Although, on the one side, this heterogeneity may imply place or community-based solutions, able to better respond to specific needs, several authors argue that they should not substitute for a governmental safety net. The question of what responsibilities for food security should reside within the state and the charitable organisations is raised by many, along with the necessity to adopt a right-to-food approach in dealing with it. This paper aims at analysing the academic debate on the allocation of responsibilities for food assistance. We did this through a literature review, in order to highlight the various combinations of private and public actors and institutions, the nature of resources used and practices involved in food assistance programs.

Le diverse forme di filiere corte (farmers’ market, vendita diretta, box scheme, Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale e Community Supported Agricolture…) in cinque realtà urbane diversificate sotto il profilo territoriale. Dopo un quadro iniziale sulle relazioni che interessano i principali attori del mercato, il testo propone un percorso metodologico sperimentale per valutare la sostenibilità (ambientale, sociale ed economica) dei processi di produzione e consumo alla base di queste filiere corte.

Aware consumers and sustainable development: reflections on food - This paper offers a contribution to the analysis of the processes of transition of the food systems, that are sustained by the innovations introduced by reflexive consumers. After reviewing the literature on consumption as driver of change, the authors propose to explain consumption models and consumers’ identities in the Summaries framework of innovation theories. The analysis is applied on consumers solidarity purchasing groups. Their innovative role is expressed by the capacity of coproduce, together with other actors, new structures, material and immaterial, for everyday life. This implies as well a re-definition of boundaries between consumption and production, commodities and services, private and public, domestic and civic. Key words: innovation networks; transition theory; critical consumption; sustainable development; solidarity purchasing groups; citizens-consumers.

Il volume contiene gli atti del Convegno annuale della Società Italiana di Economia Agraria sul tema “Biodiversità e tipicità: paradigmi economici e strategie competitive”. Partendo dalla convinzione che per capire e sostenere i processi di sviluppo che si basano sulla biodiversità sia necessario un grosso sforzo di adattamento dei concetti e delle teorie che sono alla base della disciplina, il convegno ha cercato di affrontare le implicazioni teoriche di queste tematiche per le discipline economico agrarie.