Over recent years, the Agro-Food System, mainly based on economic efficiency and profit maximization, has resulted in negative environmental and social externalities. The increasing concentration in few large, private corporations operating in the processing and retail sectors has led both to the crisis of trust in placeless and uniform products among consumers, and to power asymmetries along the food supply chain. The loss of bargaining power and constant cost-price pressure on commodity production has resulted in a decline in farm numbers, with consequences for surrounding local communities and rural areas as a whole. To overcome limits of mainstream agro-business system, over the last 30 years, driven by consumers’ renewed interest in locally and sustainably produced foods, grassroots initiatives based on the synergic collaboration among farmers and consumers networks, have emerged in many countries. These initiatives, that go under the umbrella term Alternative Argo Food Networks - AAFNs, exhibit a diversity of organizational forms and distribution solutions, but they share the willingness to form a community-based local food system by directly connecting small local producers and consumers. AAFNs include direct-to-consumer sales, pick your own, farmers’ markets, food hubs, box schemes, community-supported agriculture, collective buying groups, etc. Despite their organizational differences, they all provide a space where a variety of information and knowledge related to agriculture, the rural economy, the environment, food production, healthy eating and consumer values, might be exchanged during the face-to-face interactions between main actors adhering to AAFNs.
Nowadays ICTs and in particular mobile apps are able to provide ubiquitous and context-aware services extending such knowledge exchange and to enhance and extend situated learning opportunities -SLOs for producers and consumers.
The training-through-research project SOFIA aims to explore the value of the use of ICT tools to increase SLOs in AAFNs. The rationale of the research is to conceive of new mobiquitous services to improve mutual understanding and collaboration between value chain stakeholders thus contributing to sustainable development pathways of a local food systems and rural areas by reinforcing social capital of local food systems. The objective of the action is to define a set models, tools and technologies that can improve the competitiveness of a selected area, leveraging its potential in terms of materials and intangible resources.
SOFIA’s results have been exploited designing and developing the mobile app MilLarder. The app helps to create innovative, cooperative communication environments and fosters intellectual, social and relational capital flows among AAFNs’ partners.
