LIBRI DI ROSANNA SALVIA

The sustainability of food systems is a central issue in academic and political debate at a national and global level. Involving the various actors in food systems through a multi-actor platform approach is increasingly recognized as a way to promote sustainability because it is a strategy capable of ensuring resilience and an effective mechanism to guarantee the co-creation of knowledge and the definition and implementation of innovation. In order to ensure that the actors/ stakeholders involved are an authentic reflection of the food system, understood as a socio-ecological system i.e. the result of interactions between the socio-economic and ecological components, it is essential to use analytical tools that allow a multidisciplinary approach and that can act as devices for knowledge co-creation and promoting of collaborative approaches. This paper uses a modified version of the SES framework, designed to allow the integration of a range of collaboration behavioural factors for sustainable agri-food chains. The objective is to strengthen the analysis of the structural aspects of SES with assessment of the behavioural factors that can significantly influence the path of sustainable transformation that the SES could undertake. The study analyses the implementation of a good practice multi-actor collaboration and gives an ex ante evaluation of the adaptive mechanisms needed to activate an effective transfer, considering: - the structural characteristics of the agri-food socio-ecological systems involved in the "re-use of good practice"; - the quality and density of behavioural factors present in the socio-ecological systems involved in the "re-use of good practice". The "re-using" socio-ecological systems are all quite different, which makes the challenge of adapting the innovation more complicated. The wine producing systems involved show different levels of aggregation and capacity for adding value. There is a high risk that the costs of implementing the innovation will fall principally to the farmers, while the increase in value generated will not. For this reason, it is important to guarantee, through the initial design and subsequent implementation of the multi-actor platform, that the platform can express, recognize, and address these kinds of challenges.

The circular economy refers to a development strategy that allows economic growth by optimising the use of natural resources, minimising environmental pressures, transforming supply chains and consumption patterns and redesigning production systems so that they are restorative or regenerative by intention and design. A transition to a more circular economy requires a systemic approach that considers the interconnections that exist within and between sectors, institutions and local actors. The aim of the paper is to reflect on the characteristics of a territorial model for a circular rural economy, which directs its actions through a local lens to promote closer interaction between actors, by optimising the use of resources, and between production processes and social and cultural matrices.

Social innovation assigns importance to the social and relational aspect of the community development linking it to social interactions and cooperation. Collective actions are crucial not only to promote new solutions to the problems generated by the globalization and the financial crisis in rural areas, but also in supporting community resilience. This study focuses on an experience of social innovation in a southern Italian community, Caggiano, who has built around food a new path of development. The work analyses the mechanisms displayed and employed by the community to achieve cohesiveness and trust among different local actors and highlight how the social innovation implemented played a crucial role in promoting the development and the sustainability of the community.

The Transition Mayfield (UK) group ran a Local Food project to raise awareness in the local community about the importance of developing local food production and consumption networks; strengthening the local economy and fostering collaboration and skill sharing. The discussion reveals number of factors that were not addressed: growers can lack the additional energy and skills needed to market their produce locally; the community already has very active social networks and the Transition group could not add anything to it; there is a complex relationship between shopkeepers that determines which shop sells what produce. The paper shows that, when trying to promote local food production for local consumption, attention has to be paid and an understanding gained of the motivation and constraints that operate in every part of the network.

What is tourism in new media era? What are green tourism and green business and should we adopt green marketing strategies in order to attract tourists? The book presents theory topics and supports with insight from case studies and successful paradigms from Greece and Italy such as: major trends of tourism market, the role of public policies in tourism, agritourism and social media marketing, sustainable approach of agrotourism, rural tourism development, the role of DMOs in the digital era…

Rural areas are characterized by highly heterogeneous landscapes; rural mosaics, which are home to varying intensities of land-use and processes of deactivation and abandonment. The study discussed in this paper proposes a method for the integrated analysis of these rural areas which combines the analysis of land cover dynamics, using GIS, with an assessment of socio-economic dynamics, reconstructed through the combined use of indicators and local history. The method, applied to a socio-ecological system which is representative of the Mediterranean basin, is proposed as a tool to support sustainability processes and the territorialisation of rural polices.