Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lunigiana Amica
Do$. Francesco Molinari, mail@francescomolinari.it
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Table of Contents
Where
Why
Who
How
What
Lessons learnt
Francesco Molinari
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Where
The N/W “>p” of Tuscany
Lunigiana
14 municipali4es, 56,000 inhabitants,
4,000 unemployed, 5,300 enterprises
(800 agricultural ‐ 1,600 craB firms)
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Where (2)
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Where (3)
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Why
Agriculture has largely become an informal ac>vity:
“Second job” for most regular employees
Lowest produc<vity and size, high dispersion of
agricultural firms
Old age of local farmers (>65) need to ensure the
con>nuity of business and its permanence on the
territory
Wish to break the “vicious circle of depression”
Low market demand no incen4ve to increase quan4ty
and/or improve quality of produc4on!
Poor knowledge and innova<on capacity in local players
A long track record of “failures” in “top down” enterprise
support policies
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Why (2)
An untapped poten<al deriving from:
A few products interna>onally renowned for taste and
quality, some holding a EU cer>fica>on (e.g. Honey PDO,
Chestnut Flour, Val di Magra Wine PGI, “Testaroli” etc.)
Local consump<on of agricultural products as part of:
Touris>c promo>on of the rural and mountain territory
The experience of an invaluable ‘quality of life’
The communitarian / collabora<ve structure of local society
Some na<onal / interna<onal rela<ons brought into the
project by a group of visionary people…
The “open innova<on” approach implemented “for, by and
with” the people to opera>onalise “bo$om up” strategies
for rural development
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Who
A non profit associa<on under the Italian law
Established in January 2007, now coun>ng 120+ members and 200+
associates (mostly from the agricultural and agritourism sector)
A ‘light’ structure, with minimal costs of func>oning
HQs located in the Terrarossa Castle, in the very heart of Lunigiana
Like any ‘virtual’ organiza>on, Lunigiana Amica does not imply
significant membership fees
Run and managed by its members
Each member can freely and seamlessly join or leave any internal
cluster (project) of Lunigiana Amica, following their con>ngent
requirements, interests and opportuni>es.
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Who (2)
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Who (3)
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How
LA ≈ 120‐150 en>>es
Members
Local
Firms & ≈ 250‐300
Partners
Lunigiana
Business ≈ 2,500+
Community
… a Catalyser of Local Innova2on …
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How (2)
LA Associa>on
Third Par>es
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What
Establish a distribu<on and Promote the consump<on of
marke<ng centre for Lunigiana’s agricultural products in the same
agricultural and crah products, in area of produc<on by means of:
coopera>on with a local coopera>ve par>cipa>on in local fairs, strategic
company based in the area. alliances with the agritourism and
Ho.Re.Ca. sectors, etc.
Favour an increase in quan<ty and Create a virtual competence centre,
quality of local agricultural (and networking with European and
bio‐) products through finding new interna>onal best prac>ces in rural
markets and opportuni>es for development and ICT innova>on,
programming (e.g. school providing valuable services
canteens, new Regional law to the whole Lunigiana.
on agritourism etc.)
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What (2)
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What (3)
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What (4)
As a follow‐up of a na>onal project
on fire preven>on in the rural and
mountain areas of Italy, we have
established in 2007‐2008 an
innova<ve pilot (FRAIL) ‐ based on
mobile technologies ‐ in the specific,
real‐life scenario of fire risk
monitoring and control.
The pilot won recogni>on of FP6
WearIT@Work IP as a take‐up ac>on
and its results were presented at the
mGov Conference 2009 in Barcelona.
Involved partners: Coldiren, the
Mountain Community and the Milan
based ICT company Actvalue s.r.l.
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Next steps
Addi<onal points of distribu>on and sale in the area
Promo>on of the “bio” label of local products
Regional level agreements for the supply of “Km. 0” products (also
from other areas of Tuscany) to various prospec>ve buyers
E‐Commerce for selected items in north European markets
“PortoQui” = an in‐port food supply service to yachters
“Hotel Lunigiana” = an integrated supply of rooms from several
agritourism farmhouses
Interna<onal clustering and partnering for addi>onal business
opportuni>es and/or RDI projects based on the Living Lab approach
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Lessons learnt
“Doing it” is possible, par>cularly in small communi>es (word of
mouth effects trust and image building)
Don’t need much >me to see the first results
Make it cheap, keep overheads low
Public funding is key, but only for the start‐up phase
Reputa<on is essen>al, and growing with your achievements
You can’t serve everyone at best, so be ready to lose some
founding members on the way
Going interna<onal helps you learn from someone else’s
mistakes & open up new windows of opportunity
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More info
Associazione Lunigiana Amica
h$p://www.lunigianaamica.it (in Italian, sorry)
h$p://www.openlivinglabs.eu/sites/enoll.org/files/lunigiana‐
amica.pdf
FRAIL project
h$p://www.wearitatwork.com/take‐up‐projects/frail/
Italian Network of Living Labs
h$p://www.inoll.it
“PortoQui” project
h$p://proge$okublai.ning.com/group/portoqui
Francesco Molinari, mail@francescomolinari.it
Francesco Molinari
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Thanks for your kind attention
Francesco Molinari