Social farming
Sponsored by the operative group of the Associations “Social Farm Network”
- What is social farming?
- Who are the protagonists of social farming?
- What opportunities does a social farm offer?
- Is a social farm economically sustainable?
- What are the values of social farming ?
- What policy should be applied to social farming?
- What is and what does the Social Farm Network do?
- Useful Links
1. What is social farming?
Social farming is a whole of experiences of people with different forms of disadvantages or distress involved in agricultural activities, in order to give their life and their abilities a meaning.
Thanks to social farming, social and work inclusion, educational, working, therapeutic and rehabilitating services are promoted.
The paths of social farming develop through social services or the recruitment, in already existing farms, of disadvantaged individuals or disadvantaged workers, or the creation of new agricultural structures employing disadvantaged or distressed people.
Social farming represents the form of solidarity and values of mutual aid of the rural areas.
The combination of productive dimension and the relational dimension with plants and animals, as well as the familiar and communitarian one, gives agriculture a social function.
The new element, today, is that these activities are realized in full awareness in structures that use agricultural productive processes and operate through relational networks: social farms.
The characteristic of a social farm is the combination of social service and the agricultural activity: a social farm is structure that involves disadvantaged or distressed people in a productive agricultural process.
2. Who are the protagonists of social farming?
They are people with special needs mainly, such as health problems, severe social difficulties, and whose needs are often represented by family associations. They are also people that lost their job or have just a temporary one and that find agricultural activities a way to balance their income.
There are also those who want to experience new forms of life, production and consume.
“Biological” agricultural producers are more and more interested in social agriculture; they already run a business within agri-tourism and services connected with school, as well as young people with different income and small structures that, due to globalization, had to leave specialized productive models, experimenting eco-friendly, multi-functional and proximity agriculture.
3. What opportunities does a social farm offer?
A social farm can offer several opportunities:
- therapeutic, rehabilitating and social inclusion services, with activities dedicated to people with physical or psychological disabilities, elderly, terminal ill, women that suffered violence, non-European workers, addicts, detained or ex-detained. The social farms can be single or associated or social cooperatives of the type A or B, public or private agencies, foundations and non-profit that, although they are not agricultural businesses, employ agricultural and rural resources;
- educational services with activities dedicated to the pre-school age (agricultural nursery schools), and organized in single or associated companies or run by public or private agencies that, although they are not agricultural businesses, employ agricultural and rural resources;
- working inclusion of disadvantaged or distressed individuals in agricultural farms to fulfil their autonomy path.
4. Is a social farm economically sustainable?
The social dimension does not compromise the economic performance of the businesses involved in social agriculture.
This is an opportunity to improve instead, thanks to the process and organization innovations that should be introduced to involve disadvantaged and distressed people, and thanks also to the diversification of the agricultural product markets, in which there is an increased interest in fair trade products.
Since the social farm is by its nature environment-friendly and orientated to eco-sustainability and social justice, it is aimed at specific business and territorial paths of Social Business Responsibility, based on social and work inclusion of disadvantaged or distressed people, on the respect of the contract rules and work place safety, on enhanced new professional profiles, on the employment of integrated agricultural processes or biological agriculture.
The social farm, together with developing agricultural activities, often develops other activities: manipulation, preservation, transformation, commercialization and enhancing of the products; agri-tourism activities, didactic activities, etc.
5. How many of them exist in Italy?
There is not a complete list of social farms in Italy. At the end of 2003, Istat recorded 471 social cooperatives of type B that develop activities for the work inclusion of disadvantaged people.
Between 2003 and 2005 there were 571 with an increase of 21%, a figure against the trend of the farming businesses.
What links all these realities is the experimentation of low development strategies, based on the use of local resources and the reinforcement of networks among diverse subjects: citizens, businesses and institutions.
Along with social cooperatives there are non-profit organizations, foundations, public and private agencies and the numerous farming businesses that operate in the field. A former partial list was given by Aiab (Italian Biological Agriculture Association), from which it is estimated that in Italy there are more than a hundred of biological farming businesses that employ social farming. This is not only an Italian phenomenon.
There are significant experiences also in Holland, Norway, France, Germany and Belgium. In Holland, Belgium and Norway the most common are those based on for-profit farming businesses; in these countries the therapeutic and rehabilitating activities have been recognized by the public institutions.
In all the other countries, including Italy, these are only linked to the third sector.
6. What are the values of social farming ?
Social farming is based on the values of the Constitutional Charter and, in particular, on the article 3 that imposes to the Republic to remove all the economic and social obstacles that impede the full development of the human person and their participation to the political, economical and social organization of the country; and on the article 44 that aims the public intervention at agriculture, the preservation of the quality of the territory and the respect of social justice. Its ethical value lies on the universalistic character of the fundamental human rights and, in particular, of those that refer to the social inclusion of all, with no distinction, and to the equal access of the Earth, now and in the future, so that eve
ryone is able to contribute freely to the common wealth.
7. What policy should be applied to social farming?
The strategic objectives of a policy for social farming are:
- improving the conditions so that disadvantaged people can give a sense to their capabilities through the agricultural activities;
- recognising social agriculture as an opportunities to improve the competitiveness among businesses and rural areas;
- creating a new sense of development, social protection and environmental preservation in rural areas.
In order to be efficient, a policy for social agriculture should follow some criteria, such as:
- recognizing the diversity, pluralism and equal dignity to all the experiences of social agriculture, regardless of the fact that they are sponsored by an agricultural business;
- passing from a rural development policy of sectorial and redistributive type to a rural territorial development policy;
- reinforcing the social policies in the European policies of development and cohesion integrating them in the local development;
- orientating the territorial government to a full integration of the agricultural areas into the territorial system plan, so that the new generations can employ those areas in agriculture;
- promoting new life styles and models of environment-friendly production, investment and consume, compatible with the resources and the climate, in the full awareness that the human wellness is the ecosystem wellness;
- indentifying suitable sites and modes of the central coordination of the different policies including Regions, the Ministries involved and the social agriculture network.
8. What is and what does the Social Farm Network do?
The Social Farm Network is a non-profit association for social promotion born in 2005. It comprises diverse subjects involved into social farming experiences: disadvantaged or distressed people, farmers,
social operators, researchers, professionals, technicians, agencies, associations, cooperatives, foundations, institutes.
It is articulated as a network of people and organizations and it practises an intervention methodology funded on the active citizenship and participation. The Association does not comprise all the existing realities across the country, but it is aimed at creating a “Community of social farming practices” in Italy, also able to compete with the other European countries.
The Association has created a “Network of Experiences and Knowledge”, on a voluntary base, made of researchers, professionals, operators, aimed at promoting a debate on the themes of social farming with the world of research.
The Association does also entertainment, educational and promotional activities of social farming. Particularly, it sponsors projects aimed at supporting the new models of the productive, environmental and cultural resources of territorial and extra-territorial areas.
The Association is also in charge of the online information desk of social farming www.fattoriesociali.com.
9. Useful Links
Acli Terra
www.acliterra.it
Agrietica
www.agrietica.it
Aiab
www.aiab.it
Alpa
www.alpainfo.it
Farming for health
www.farmingforhealth.org
Lombrico sociale (Social earth-worm)
www.lombricosociale.info
Social Farm Network
www.fattoriesociali.com
Sofar
http://sofar.unipi.it