Systemic Consortium: system vision applied to the small and average farms of Cuneo’s district

The focus of our research is the province of Cuneo and its agricultural economy and production. Cuneo is located in the North West part of Italy and it represents for extension one of the most important provinces in the Italian scene. In particular our interest is on small and medium farms that, for their nature, represent the real fulcrum of Cuneo’s economy. Analyzing the current situation of food-producing, it’s evident how productive processes are linear and based overall on quantity and not quality. In this way the territory has lost the link with its history, local values and know- how to pursue the globalization ideal and receipts. It happens that in a province like Cuneo, South American cereal are grown and imported to feed English breed of swine, that are going to be one of the most popular Italian products: Parma’s raw ham! The real problem is that some cultivations have replaced the native ones, and some others, as cereals, are insufficient to provide for territory needs; so products coming from small farms are devalued, because they are sold by large retailers without any indication about their provenance and peculiarity. Moreover all weaving factories have natural outputs, considered as wastes. Applying the systemic approach to the Cuneo’s district we connected the different weaving factories, breeding and agriculture ones, creating a kind of consortium, in which they share knowledge, potential, products and overall outputs to pursue goals in common and to create new opportunity, dividing cost and pay-off. This is called Systemic Consortium. So the real challenge is changing the way we think about sustainability, only with dialogue and collaboration between the local weaving factory, it’s possible to create a correct and fair development: a network in which output becomes input, wastes are resources and the processes are in balance with territory and ecosystem.