Assessing Agri-Food Start-Ups Sustainability in Peri-Urban Agriculture Context

Abstract

Latest international directives indicate the need for sustainable development, linking socio-economic and environmental aspects, to reach the goals set by Agenda 2030. In this context, peri-urban agriculture can represent the opportunity to increase cities’ sustainability, improving their liveability level, fulfilling a crucial social part since it assures new sources of job opportunities and territorial requalification. This study presents a peri-urban requalification experience, conducted in Milan, Italy, where, within the European funded project OpenAgri, eight agri-food start-ups began their activities in a peri-urban area at the southern gates of the city. The study aims to assess and evaluate these start-ups’ sustainability using the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA), which considers four sustainability pillars: Good governance, economic resilience, environmental integrity and social well-being. The application of SAFA indicators to the eight start-ups revealed their positive aspects and some limitations, typical of some not structured enterprises. The research describes a scalable and replicable example of peri-urban agriculture’s potentiality in solving environmental, social and economic issues and tests FAO’s SAFA framework, which is still unexplored in this sustainability assessment context.

Challenges to Promote Sustainability in Urban Agriculture Models: A Review

“…In turn, Tapia et al [92] developed a model anchored in scientific and sustainability principles, particularly related to SDG and ES narratives, to assess the benefits and negative consequences of implementing different types of UA. Similarly, Zanzi et al [93] evaluated the sustainability in the implementation of UA by startups in Milan through a holistic framework and observed the possibility of UA to promote four facets of sustainability: economic resilience, social well-being, governance, and environmental integrity. Although relevant, both models are developed for cities belonging to the Global North, whose social and environmental characteristics are very different from those present in the Global South.…”