Participatory approach to a place-based sustainable rural development: E-market platform for a resilient Agri-food chain

The paper reports the experience of a participatory process for the definition of a Local Action Group (LAG) rural development strategy in the southern Italian region of Campania, carried out under the RDP 2014-2020. A number of rural labs for resilient communities were organised involving key actors from agri-food chains, the rural tourism sector, consumers and local institutions. As in many rural areas, the principal challenge facing local farms in the territory is accessing larger distribution channels given their small size. The participatory process aimed to address this challenge and achieved two important results; firstly, the creation of a product-local identity environment that led to the conception of a virtual E-market platform, negotiated among the different stakeholders, with an aim to promote direct sales of local agri-food products between quality conscious consumers and local producers via a smartphone app; secondly, a more closely connected agri-food chain as all participants in the chain, including regional policy-makers, agencies and other key stakeholders, have access to up-to-date and explicitly localised information on the key driving forces they need to consider to ensure the sustainability of policies and programmes relating to rural development.