Le innovazioni sociali delle attività agricole. Esempi di buone pratiche in Puglia

Agriculture may perform wider productive functions; in addition to traditional farming, it combines other environmental, landscape, social, cultural activities, and the provision of well-being services (such as multiple benefits provided by ecosy- stems) for the entire community, which also aim to counteract the decline, depopulation and transformation of rural areas. Law 141 of 18 August 2015 promotes social farm by aiming at the integration of agricultural practices and social services through the diversification of rural activities. The aim of the paper is to explore and catalog the functions performed by companies carrying out social farming activities and their level of innovation in terms of services to the community. These social activities represent forms of innovation with repercussions within rural systems. The document analysis indicators come from national and foreign literature, and we look at examples of virtuous models with reference to the Apulia region, as examples of good practices to empirically illustrate the type of agricultural social innovation adopted.