Food Presidia: a sustainable agro-food systems?

The aim of this study is to develop an indicator-based monitoring tool for sustainability of Slow Food Presidia, taking into account quality and economic, ecological, social, cultural aspects. The SF Presidia project is not simply promoting a "conservative" development model, where the local capital formed by the natural and cultural resources are preserved. It is a model of reinterpretation, redistribution and re-appropriation of use, value and resources inherent in the local area starting from the interactions of the latter with the local and global context, the specific dialogue between endogenous and external stimuli. Methodological steps were considered: (i) translating the major SF principles of Good, Clean and Fair into concrete and relevant themes for sustainability issues; (ii) designing indicators to monitor progress towards sustainability for each of those themes; and (iii) applying the monitoring tool on three SF Presidia, as a first attempt atend-use validation. Stakeholder participation and expert consulting played an important part in each of these methodological steps. Results of the multi objective sustainability evaluation of three SF presidia are shown.