RISULTATI RICERCA

This paper highlights the importance and the emergence of Participatory Guarantee Systems (pgs) for quality assurance of organic products worldwide. The study provides an overview of several experiences of networks that have adopted pgs. As such, the paper represents a valuable instrument considering the different facets that these models have assumed over the years, in different countries and contexts, in response to different needs. The first network described is the Brazilian Rede Ecovida de Agroecologia. It is interesting to note that in this case the work and the products of the network are officially recognized within the national legislation. On the contrary, Certified Naturally Grown was founded from the need of diversification from the American National Organic Program. Finally, the Indian ngo Keystone Foundation, which promotes and stands for the protection of both cultivation and indigenous cultures. In Italy the CampiAperti association represents one of the best-organized network of producers and co-producers based on pgs principles. The Italian experience offers the chance to a widespread remark, also by Genuino Clandestino movement, on the need for policy adjustments to the variety of productive practices as well as looking at the several experiences of small processors. In this respect in Italy policymakers are starting to discuss a number of measures aimed at protecting family farmers and their production habits. For example, Regulation n. 19/2014 of Emilia Romagna Region recognizes and defends the application of solidarity economic activities. This regulation enhances the importance of peasant agriculture and its practices and it also recognizes the participatory guarantee as a model that ensures environmental and social sustainability and animal welfare as well as workers’ rights. Specific interest in this topic has also come up on the European agenda. In 2013 the EU launched an online public consultation on organic agriculture and the regulation of organic production. This survey contains some questions regarding EU citizens’ willingness to accept alternative certification schemes. Furthermore, in 2014 Horizon2020 published a call entitled Small farms but global markets: the role of small and family farms in food and nutrition security. This call recognizes the importance of the contribution of family farms, and in particular smallholder farms, to food and nutrition security. This is why, we have to encourage and develop the growing also at EU policy level for alternative safeguarding models for organic agriculture.

Wine consumption has, over the years, assumed an important cultural and social value which might be considered ‘hedonistic’. The evocativeness of wines lies in its recalling its territory of origin, and this function emerges especially among consumers who tend to travel in wine-producing regions. The establishment of the Reg. (EC) No. 834/2007 complemented by Reg. (EU) No. 203/2012 marking the transition from the "made from organic grapes" label to the "organic wine" label, enhanced the economic-ecological and social meaning of oenological products. Although the wine consumer focuses more on price, packaging and brand awareness, new trends in consumer preferences are moving towards innovative oenological products characterized by low sulfite and lower alcohol content. The purpose of this study is to assess perception of organic wine within a sample of consumers who are willing to travel to consume quality wine and to experience other particular attributes such as Protected Designation of Origin and region of origin, as well as price. The methodology consisted of Choice Experiments. The survey was conducted in June and July of 2013 in a region in the South of Italy. The data was collected during the "Calici di Stelle" event in Trani (Apulia), which is an annual wine tasting event aimed at fostering wine tourism in regions whose wine companies invest particularly in the high quality and sustainability of their products. We expect that organic certification labels will have a significant influence on the process of turning wine ‘credence’ attributes into ‘search’ attributes and could have a positive influence on the choice of a wine from the shelf. Filling the information gap in consumers’ perception of organic components may improve the competitiveness of local producers in the global market.

Consumers’ decisions are increasingly influenced by ethical issues. In the food domain it has led to the spread of alternative food supply chains. These innovative food networks, deaply embedded in the local domain, are characterized by a strong focus on food sustainability. Among them, the initiatives promoted and selforganized by consumers are particularly interesting as they disclose a high potential of fostering wider social changes. In this context, Solidarity Purchase Groups (called gas after the Italian acronym) emerge as spontaneous associations of consumers with strong ethical motivations including environmental, economic and social issues, which are fast-spreading in Italy. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, looking at consumers, we analyze the profile of the Italian consumers who participate to gass, in order to more precisely identify the target of these experiences, on the base of a large survey held in Italy on short food chain consumers; on the other hand, from a strategic and operational level, we discuss how these innovative supply chain models are organized, drawing from data retrieved for the 117 gas s operating in the city of Rome. The results show that gas participants have some specific features compared to consumers shopping in other alternative food chains, both in the socio-demographic profile and in their purchasing behavior, which is characterized by a strong ethical motivation. Looking at the organizational models of the gas s of Rome, the results of the survey confirm that the social dimension is very important in the management of these groups, as well as the principles at the base of their constitution, which very often refer to environmental concerns about farming techniques, social commitment to the local community and trust-based relations with the producers. Nevertheless, beside the social and environmental concerns, the economic dimension is still very important, as shared purchases most of the time results in a significant reduction in prices. The evidences confirm that the gas model represents a very interesting object of analysis for economists. Indeed, gas s are an unique example of completely demand-pull innovative food chain. Besides, they are able to involve consumers with specific needs and a strong ethical motivation underpinning the food purchase.

The research hypothesis of this paper is that the "traditional local products" business is a valid strategic option for the development of agricultural enterprises, enterprises of agro-industry and entire territorial areas. The promotion of local products, however, requires an innovative marketing approach, combining the conceptual tools of marketing services, according to the approach of the Service Dominant Logic (Vargo and Lush, 2004 and 2008; Gronroos, 2011; Gronroos and Gummerus, 2014) with the experiential perspective (Schmitt, 1999; Pine and Gilmore, 1999). The study proposes an "experience logic" marketing approach, which focuses marketing processes on customer experience. The methodology followed is qualitative, based on the case study (Yin, 2003). This method is considered coherent with the exploration and interpretative purposes of the study which also intends to submit to a preliminary verification the new conceptualization of marketing as applied to products and experiential consumption. We have chosen to analyze the case of Marini Azzolini Truffles Acqualagna (PU) because the company has an extensive product portfolio which includes goods, services and experience connected to truffles. The study shows that the company has adopted a marketing approach, disregarding the value created by and with the customer in places where truffle consumption is experienceed (restaurants and in the surrounding local area). In this way the firm does not take advantage of opportunities for further exploiting the market because it has assumed of a marketing approach based on "experience logic". Despite the limitations of the research due to its making use of only a single case study, the paper proposes a new conceptual model (experience logic) for observing and interpreting the food and wine business as well as the businesses involved in the new post-modern consumption processes, in which there is a demand for a strong experiential content, authenticity, and low standardization of the products and services offered.

A new hypothesis on the basic features characterising the Foundations of Mathematics (FoM) is suggested. By means of it the several proposals for discovering the FoM, launched around the year 1900, are characterised. It is well-known that the historical evolution of these proposals was marked by some notorious failures and conflicts. After the failures of Frege’s and Cantor’s programs owing to the discoveries of respectively an antinomy and internal contradictions, the more radical ones - i.e. Hilbert’s and Brouwer’s - generated a great debate; this fact is here explained as caused by a phenomenon of mutual incommensurability, defined by means of the differences in their foundational features. The ignorance of this phenomenon gives reason of the inconclusiveness of one century debate between the advocates of these two proposals. Which however have been improved so much to unwarily approach or even recognize some basic features of the FoM. Yet, no one proposal recognized the alternative basic feature to Hilbert’s main one, the deductive (axiomatic) organization of a theory, although already half century before the births of all the programs this alternative was substantially instantiated by Lobachevsky’s theory on parallel lines. Some conclusive considerations of historical and philosophical nature are offered. In particular, it is stressed the conclusive birth of a pluralism in the FoM.

The first part of this paper analyses the core tenets of the "new mechanistic philosophy" in view of the growth, over the last twenty years, of scientific literature on the mechanistic paradigm, especially within molecular biology and the neurosciences. This analysis yields an image of living organisms as systems which are mechanical, complex and selffounding. The second part of this paper deals with a core tenet of the mechanistic paradigm, namely that the explanation of a biological phenomenon coincides with the explanation of the mechanisms which constitute the phenomenon itself; this idea is criticised with reference to the contextualisation of the epistemological status of biology within Michael Polanyi’s theory of personal knowledge. The comparison between Polanyi’s thought and the mechanistic paradigm exposes the weaknesses of both: on the one hand, Polanyi’s theory of knowledge highlights aspects of the biologist’s work that are overlooked by mechanistic conceptions; on the other hand, the idea that biology includes a kind of knowledge which is tacit or untranslatable entails a series of problems for scientific research. In order to avoid these problems, the concept of mechanism must be re-examined, especially from a methodological point of view.

In the past few years, behavioural, neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies have been suggesting that Embodied Simulation represents a constitutive feature of language understanding. However, this claim is still controversial, as is the definition of Embodied Simulation. In this paper, I aim at providing a more suitable definition of Embodied Simulation. I will then apply this definition to the study of bodily metaphors. Embodied Simulation gets us attuned with our social world and it provides us with both a brain and bodily disposition, which is the starting point of many cognitive processes. Exploitation of the mechanism of simulation is particularly evident in the linguistic phenomenon of metaphors. Bodily metaphors are often so successful because they exploit this mechanism of brain and bodily attunement, enacted by means of Embodied Simulation. The role of Embodied Simulation and its importance for metaphor comprehension can be explained in two points: (1) Embodied Simulation allows speakers to share a bodily attitude during communicative exchanges; (2) by means of Embodied Simulation speakers directly experience the source domain during metaphorical mapping.