The integration of agriculture in the politics of social regeneration of degraded urban areas

Starting out from the admonitions of the encyclical letter by pope Francis, this contribution aims to define the value of social agriculture as an instrument of integrated development of the territory able to foster, just for its own peculiarities, the creation of dense systems of relationships among the various stakeholders that operate in synergy for the local development of the territory and the creation, therefore, of shared capital. The analysis, through the first results of a case study involving various social agricultural enterprises that operate in the metropolitan area of Catania, has enables the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the relationships that are generated between the various subjects that interact at the territorial level (network), using the methodology of Social Network Analysis (SNA).