Supply chain in RDP: the Italian experience of Integrated Supply chain Projects (Programmi integrati di filiera - PIF)

In recent years Italy has seen a vital, if spontaneous and rather piecemeal, growth in short food supply chains at the local level. Such a phenomenon is of considerable interest since it responds to a number of needs and opportunities, both of farmers and consumers. Short supply food chains in fact:

• contribute to diversifying and increasing sources of income for farmers;

• help develop closer links between consumers and farmers, thereby reinforcing a sense of the importance of the agricultural sector for a sustainable society;

• Increase the supply of fresh, high quality, relatively unprocessed food at the local level and therefore promote healthy eating without necessarily weighing down on consumers’budgets.

Moreover short supply chains are particularly suited to the highly fragmented nature of agricultural production in Italy and to the promotion of the wide range of local food specialties which are closely linked to the diversity of the Italian territory.

enrd.ec.europa.eu/