Italy

The region of Lazio

General description
Lazio is situated in the central peninsular region of Italy, from the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian sea. Lazio occupies 17,236 km² of the country, and is composed by 5 provinces. It is the third most populated of the 20 formal administrative Regions of Italy. Population is increasing and is more than 5 million inhabitants, of which about 4 are in the Rome province, the most densely populated province of Italy. The Lazio region has the second largest economy of the country. The agricultural sector lost the importance it traditionally had until after World War II, when production came mainly from large agricultural estates. Industrial development in Lazio is limited to the areas of south of Rome. About 73% of the working population is employed in the services sector. Rome is the core of the national public administration, banking, tourism, insurance and other services. Many national and multinational corporations have their headquarters in Rome and its outskirts. Lazio’s limited industrial sector and highly developed service industries allowed the region to largely outperform the Italian economy in 2009.

Sustainable initiatives in Lazio
The regional administration of Lazio aims at promoting environmental sustainability through initiatives such as Green Purchase and Green Public Procurement (GPP). GPP is a tool for sustainable development, addressed to public administrations and local authorities to guide their procurement for products and processes compatible with the environment. Many initiatives in the region are currently already taking place in projects concerning the re-evaluation of regional agriculture, local and common land cultivation and traditional and innovative production of organic food and regional products (see http://www.minambiente.it/pagina/gpp-acquisti-verdi).

The initiatives of the Italian case study include a network of agricultural cooperatives in the Rome peri-urban area and agricultural outskirts (coop-coraggio.it; terraonlus.it; cobragor.org; dasud.it; equorete.net; croceviaterra.it). The main initiative to be considered is the agricultural COoperativa Romana AGricoltura GIOvani (Co.r.ag.gio, which in Italian would read as “Coraggio”, meaning “Courage”). The Cooperative joins together women and men (farmers, agronomists, chefs, architects, day workers, anthropologists, educators) with a passion for sustainable agriculture, healthy food production, environment and landscape preservation. It is committed to develop an agricultural urban model that is healthy, organic and multi-functional. The aim is to replace the degraded concrete buildings with a proposed new way of living, based on environmental concerns, on respecting the dignity of labour and on the social value and meaning of agriculture. Coraggio carried out a public debate with the Rome Municipality aimed to obtain the concession of public lands to young farmers, for realizing public multi-functional farms capable to produce food as well as services (agricultural training and experimentation, didactics, workshops, urban gardening, food services, restoration, green tourism, and outdoor sports). In addition, the Italian case study includes an analysis of the Slow Food movement (slowfood.it), a cultural movement that was founded as an alternative to fast food, and of other similar movements (e.g. the “Gambero Rosso” editorial company, gamberorosso.it). Among the major aims of these movements is the preservation of the traditional and regional cuisine of Italy and its products, encouraging a territorial-based farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristics of the local ecosystems and reflecting the environmental, cultural and landscape diversity of the Italian peninsula. The entire philosophy of the Slow Food movement can be summarised in one of the most famous quotations of its founder and president, Carlo Petrini: “everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food”, where good means the quality and flavourful taste, clean means the sustainability in the production and distribution process, and fair means the adequacy of the pricing for consumers and of the treatment of the producing labour force.

Recent activities of the italian Case Study initiatives
CoRAgGio cooperates with S.O.S. School PDF
CoRAgGio building an earthern oven PDF
More Information about CoRAgGio is available on http://www.coop-coraggio.it/

Case Study project contact:
Fridanna Maricchiolo ()