Description
Raccolti di Comunitá is a social farming community that is connected through an online platform and engages in multiple cooperative activities. Farmers can join the cooperative through the online app, and benefit from the cooperative’s brand. The platform also allows its users to organize and participate in social and inclusive farming activities. The platform also allows users to buy and sell food products issued by social farming and produced by members of the cooperative. Finally, the platform facilitates community exchanges for peer-learning, as well as project development and fundraising activities.
Technology
The online community features multiple sections. The Brand section provides access to a chart developed by the cooperative promoting the sale of social farming products, and includes a form listing the demands of farmers who want to register to use the brand. The Service section contains a form to be filled out by members who want to organize social farming activities, and to promote them among potential users. The Community section contains a conceptual map, a chart and guidelines for membership to the cooperative and cooperation among actors. The Social Community section serves as a social media platform, whereby registered users can post pictures, hyperlinks texts and other visual material reporting their social farming engagements. Other users can use the function “like”. In the Shop section, consumers can find social farming products, categorized based on price, local availability and quantity. Consumers can purchase and order products online, but must collect them from one of the stores in the cooperative network.
Target
The main users of the online platform are the members of the cooperative, as well as the physical shops that cooperate and support the sale of social farming products. Other actors who make use of the platform are members of the public and consumers with ethical concerns concerning inclusion and equity. The platform is used also by people offering social farming services, such as art therapy or animal care, to people with disabilities, trauma or victims of abuse or violence. Anyone selling or purchasing the cooperative’s products or services must first create an online account and log in to the platform to gain access to its functions.
Business model
The platform is free to use by non-members of the cooperative, while cooperative members are subject to a one-time EUR 25 membership fee that allows them to benefit from the services provided by the platform, and those of the cooperative (community, brand, chart of values, etc.).
Impact
The platform encourages cooperation among its members, and promotes the image and marketing of social farming operations, products and activities, especially in the Umbria region of Italy. The online platform supports the textual, visual and relational exchanges unfolding in social farming in the region, and its scope is now extending beyond Umbria. Cooperative members can link their own websites to the platform giving further reach to their activities. The online platform is a tool through which members combine their resources and efforts with a common goal.
Partners
Oasi Agricola; L'albero Di Zaccheo; Ariel Cooperativa Sociale; La Rondine a Maccarello; Fattoria Sociale
Four Betters
Better production
Better nutrition
Better environment
Better life
