The excursion offers the opportunity to learn about exemplary actions of community engagement and generative local development, which originate from the desire to make the most of scarcely used territorial resources, capable of fostering social innovation, reorienting agriculture towards more equitable logics, and supporting the creation of common goods. 

These are Community Projects that place the territory at the centre, as the organizational principle of production, and start from the community by activating rural citizenship in sharing duties and processes. They are initiatives that promote: innovative agriculture as a laboratory of sustainable practices; experiential tourism; circular and shared economy; generative welfare; social protection and reuse of public or private goods. 

The protagonists of these initiatives of local communities’ development, are networks of actors: farmers, rural enterprises and, also representatives of farmer-based associations, local administrations, experts, researchers and passionate rural citizens.  

CRESM is a non-profit social cooperative with decades of experience in the fields of local and rural development planning, community regeneration, immigration and social inclusion. CRESM’s activities are mainly aimed at farmers, rural enterprises, families, young people, the valorisation of assets confiscated from the mafia, and at vulnerable groups (unemployed, immigrants, prisoners, people with health conditions or impairments) in Italy and the Mediterranean area.  

In 2016, thanks to the action of CRESM, the ‘LAG – Local Action Group Valle del Belice’ was set-up, a consortium of 121 public and private members, supported by the LEADER intervention under the EU Common Agricultural Policy. Through the activation of participatory processes, the LAG promoted and implemented a Local Development Strategy, in 12 municipalities of the Valley, to support the development and innovation of local supply chains and the integration of agriculture with other sectors of the local economy and society. 

After lunch, that will be held in the medieval complex of Partanna Castle, there will be a visit to the ‘Rita Atria Libera Terra’ Cooperative, set up in 2014 by participating in a public call for tenders promoted by the Libera association, that is the national agency for the administration and destination of assets seized and confiscated from organised crime.  

The Cooperative manages some lands in the Belice Valley that are cultivated according to organic farming methods, respecting the ecosystem, biodiversity, and safeguarding the chemical-physical-biological fertility of the soil. Thanks to this activity, the Cooperative is fostering labour insertion and making the collective assets entrusted to it productive again, giving them a new lease of life, creating a virtuous economic circuit based on respect for human resources and the land. 

This excursion is particularly connected to the following IFSA2024 themes: 

Theme 2 | APPROACHES TO LOCAL DEVELOPMENT: HARMONISING AGRICULTURE AND COMMUNITIES