OrtoCentro
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
Socio-Economic Innovation project consisting of agricultural goods production and sale in urban spaces, involving work integration coops and farmers. An Integrated Urban Agriculture model that shortens the supply chain for producers and consumers, by creating a city network of Direct Cultivation, Accumulation, Distribution and Marketing of agricultural products within the urban system, promoting the local economy, the environmental protection, the job placement and the community engagement.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
OrtoCentro gives life to a market based on the relationship between Agricultural Entrepreneurs, Social Cooperatives for Employment and "prosumer" Citizens who feed the supply chain by becoming buyers of products at Km (super) 0, healthy and with very high traceability, with the aim of guaranteeing a "green reuse" of public spaces and giving jobs to the unemployed and disadvantaged groups that are increasingly varied.
The City provides the Land, the Cooperatives the Labor and the Farmers the Experience: in this way vegetables, fruit and herbs are grown in the city, integrating production with the goods that agricultural producers bring from their countryside Company and distributing everything through a local commercial network in the city, generating an economic value that is equally redistributed among all the players in the supply chain.
Key objectives for sustainability
HOW DOES THE SUSTAINABILITY WORK:
1- The Municipality provides land in Concession, in urban or peri-urban areas of the city.
2 - OrtoCentro connects Agricultural Entrepreneurs and Social Cooperatives, creating an Urban Agricultural Unit.
3 - Together, they are planned the training of workers and the production of the land in the Unit
4 - Everyone at work: the Agricultural Entrepreneur coordinates the Unit and confers part of his company production to the OrtoCentro; the Cooperative's Manpower applies the knowledge learned and works the land; OrtoCentro collects and welcomes the products, organizing them for sale
5 - OrtoCentro sells the Unit products daily in the Neighborhood, to individuals and to food&beverage activities through a Responsible / Ethical Delivery service (... and in the future at a Urban Downtown AgriMarket, which collects products from all the different OrtoCentro Unit and sells them locally)
6 - The economic value generated is redistributed equally among the actors: Agricultural Entrepreneurs, Social Cooperatives and OrtoCentro.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Still to define, but with a lot of potential in terms of attractiveness for consumers
Key objectives for inclusion
Each OrtoCentro is a cooperation project between stakeholders, a place of community and environmental regeneration, in which to promote proximity economy, experiences of food self-production, mechanisms of circular economy, social cohesion, food education and community services, while generating economic, social and environmental impacts.
Innovative character
Ortocentro realizes a process innovation related to the horticultural products supply chain that differs, compared to the large-scale retail trade and the (more sporadic) examples of the farmer's market, by being an instrument of Environmental Transformative Resilience, creation and conservation of Urban Biodiversity. At the same time, it has as its objective the construction of a company that favors the Neighborhood Economy, the territorial dimension (small and medium-sized enterprises) and the Local Consumption of healthy and sustainable products, proposing itself as a vector for Work Employment, integration and intergenerationality, able to contribute to the construction of local identity and Social Cohesion.
