How to stimulate the development of short food supply chains and farmers’ markets through digital platforms?

24 August 2021

In the framework of the Strength2Food project, a set of pilot actions demonstrated and validated the potential of policies and schemes to stimulate the development of new quality markets and local food chains, and improve the nutritional benefits of PSFP, evaluating their likely sustainability. 

The knowledge generated from the pilots  have been collected in a set of Policy and Practice notes, containing recommendations for practitioners and policy makers, to be used for future implementation and upscaling.

The Policy and practice note from a pilot action led by Coldiretti, with the support of the University of Parma, aimed at raising consumers’ awareness about the benefits associated with FMs. In particular, the action consisted in developing and promoting the use of a smart-phone application called Campagna Amica.

Findings from the pilot initiative show that the application “Campagna Amica” contributed to increasing consumers’ knowledge about several themes linked to agriculture, e.g. nutrition, sustainability, SFSCs, origin, and food quality.

It also enabled consumers’ learning about local and traditional recipes, fostering a sense of cultural identity and belonging to a territory.

Based on this evidence, the note reports some recommendations addressed to practitioners (both organizations and farmers), policy makers and public authorities to stimulate actions functional to the building of trust relations among different actors of the short food supply chain.

Source: Strength2Food project