Neo-Endogenous Rural Development in Favor of Organic Farming: Two Case Studies from Italian Fragile Areas

This paper analyses two case studies ascribable to neo-endogenous paradigm for rural development experimented by two small municipalities in Northern (Varese Ligure) and Central-southern (Castel del Giudice) Italian Apennines. By means of different approaches, the two towns have been able to provide local development through organic farming that in turn have boosted economic diversification or new forms of territorial aggregation. They have drawn the attention to the neighbouring communities and have stimulated emulation processes. Through a multivariate analysis this study therefore gets to a distinct partition of the two regional territories (NUTS2), where the cases belong, identifying the municipalities that show greater affinity to the cases in question, in order to offer to policy makers useful elements either for encouraging the replication of best practices or including them in future planning strategies. However, while the cluster that includes Varese Ligure (in Northern Italy) appears more clearly influenced by environmental values and a certain demographic resilience, the one to which Castel del Giudice belongs (in the Center-South) is more influenced by the aging of the population and by a greater structural dependency. Both clusters, however, could find a common way of development centred on the economic potential offered by organic farming due to the affinity shown by the proposed case studies.