**3. Results**

*The "Food Villages": An Innovative Food Network Concept Proposal*

The proposed "Food Villages" model promotes food resilience, health, environment care and defence, social aggregation, relationality, enhancement, and cultural biodiversity promotion, agroecology, and economic processes for the common good (increase in employment, fair compensation and rights of workers, appropriate production and services, etc.).

The model aims to establish a "Food Community" where the needs of all stakeholders can be satisfied. It is a prototype of an agri-food chain based on the ecological, civil, common good, and happiness economy principles to achieve the common good. The heart of the project is the "Community Pact for Food", a set of shared values and practices around food, its production, impact on the environment, the economy, and society.

The base innovation is established on the concept that consumers, local producers, and the Food Village's employees can be involved in the same legal entity, which combines supply, processing, and marketing to create a fair and ecological supply chain. The economic process could be ecological and achieve efficiency, redistribution, and relationality, thus becoming a tool for the development of the common good. Therefore, the "Community Cooperative" has been identified as the legal subject of the model.

Within this economic space, the needs of consumers and small–micro local producers are met and compared. The agricultural producers must create a stable income, receive fair compensation, operate in good working conditions, and improve the efficiency of production; at the same time, consumers need to constantly buy healthy and sustainable products at a fair price, and optimise their use of time, live spaces of relationship, and increase their awareness and self-determination.

The possibility to adhere to the "Community Cooperative" will be open and each kind of member will pay a membership fee to become part of it.

The products of the member farms conferring to this "Community Cooperative" will be sold within the Food Market.

Specifically, the food products' supply sold in the Food Market will include three levels:

(1) "ultra-local", characterized by the supply of members of the Food Village, located up to a maximum of 50 km away from the Food Market; this share of products will represent at least 20% of the total offer. All the ultra-local food products within the Food Market will be produced according to agroecological criteria or conferred by farms that are progressively in transition to agroecology, thus facilitating the involvement of local farms that would otherwise have been excluded.

(2) "local", characterized by the supply of non-associated farms located up to a maximum of 200 km away from the Food Market; this share of products will represent at least 50–60% of the total offer.

(3) "local extended" characterized by the supply of non-associated farms, located up to a maximum of 500 km away from the Food Market; this quota will represent at least 20–30% of the total offer and will concern all those products that cannot be produced in the local area. The products that cannot be cultivated in the area, such as coffee, tea, cocoa, etc. will also be sourced beyond 500 km away from the Food Market.

This supply structure was designed to increase the goods variability, according to the quality criteria expressed by the consumers.

Household economy products with specific eco-sustainability certifications would also be sold in the Food Market.

The Food Market will allow consumers to have constant access to various products purchased in bulk or using eco-sustainable packaging where this is not possible. For those interested in reducing the use of cars, the Cooperative will organise a shopping delivery system three times a week. For those interested or in need, but also to reduce the use of cars, the Cooperative will organise a shopping delivery system three times a week.

The Food Market was planned to allow consumers to have constant access to a wide variety of products, something that rarely happens in short-chain models such as SPG and OGSD.

A micro-transformation system and storage will be created through modules owned by the cooperative (See for example Self-Globe modular plants (https://www.selfglobe.com/) (accessed on 10 June 2021) to reinforce the cooperative member's local farmers' role in the food supply chain.

The micro transformation could involve different kinds of activities such as a mill, a pasta factory, cheese factory, oil mill, seed cleaning, slaughterhouse, fruit and vegetable processing and transformation, etc.

The transformation processes will be carried out by a dedicated staff of the Cooperative. It will allow small and micro local agricultural farms participating in the Cooperative to transform their production; in fact, usually, these farms are forced to sell to wholesalers and large-scale retailers because they do not produce adequate quantities, thus foregoing fair compensation to limited quantities of agricultural production.

The micro-transformation modules will allow producers to raise their net income per hectare conferred through an internal redistribution of the surplus achieved by processed products. Road transport is reduced when the processing and marketing sectors are located in a single place.

Beyond the products supplied by local producers, the Food Market will be supplied according to traditional methods, based on the quality criteria expressed by the consumers themselves. Although there will be particular attention on the eco-sustainability of the supply chains involved, the Food Market of the "Food Village" could also sell all the kinds of products that a traditional supermarket usually sells. Thus, the Food Market purchasing agents will also be able to source from both non-local producers and distributors.

Contiguously to the Food Market, spaces for participatory democracy are provided for social assemblies, co-planning of prices and production, and the participatory certification of the local production. All spaces will be built according to bio-ecological architecture for their autonomous energy requirements. Additionally, they will provide permanent training to local producers on agroecology, business management, production processes, agronomic best available technologies (BAT), crop accounts, and price formation. Moreover, consumers will be provided with courses on healthy lifestyles (balanced nutrition, physical activity/sports, self-awareness practices, facilitation and participation techniques, education in relationships, etc.); territorial, national, and international dissemination and enhancement of food cultures will also be organised.

Figure 2 shows a brief graphical summary of the principal characteristics of the "Food Village".

**Figure 2.** Food Village characteristics.

These spaces for participatory democracy could also be used to implement ecological transition projects (e.g., purchasing groups of green technologies such as solar and photovoltaic panels, electric bicycles, etc., as well as repairing and reusing objects).

Entertainment and catering sites are provided (such as a bar, restaurant, street food, theatre, etc.) to meet and attend artistic performances (music, presentations, books, readings, etc.) to facilitate the community aggregation. Restaurants mainly use products provided by members, thus creating another earning opportunity for the producers. Furthermore, the Cooperative could organise visits to the member farms to strengthen the sense of community, bond with the territory, and agricultural production.

"Food Village" is a replicable model; according to the needs and characteristics of a specific area, each "Food Village" Cooperative can open Food Markets separate from the headquarters to facilitate its increased usability. This is important in large cities where the space required to implement micro transformation and promote social aggregation and participatory democracy is unavailable in the city centres.

In each area, the Community Cooperative will aggregate the local offer and involve new farms based on the actual member's consumption. This, along with the reduction in food waste at the trade phase, will stabilise the income for producers who could have the guarantee of selling their products even before production due to supply contracts. Furthermore, the procurement contracts established with the producer members could be confirmed annually, making the farm's economic flows stable. A protocol could be defined within the cooperative regulations, governing the contractual relations between the cooperative and its producer members. The quality standards for production will be established for agroecological farmers and those in the agroecological transition process.

The product quality standards defined in the contracts will be verified through a participatory certification system in which the members are involved. If a producer fails to supply the Cooperative, the needs may be reallocated to other members in the same village or neighbouring villages. Software to coordinate operators and manage the compensation for production failures will be developed.

Moreover, the system will facilitate the work exchange and sharing of means of transport within the network to optimise resources, increase efficiency, and reduce costs of the production system. The Cooperative could facilitate the purchase, shared use of the production machinery, and reuse production waste within the farms involved or externally to implement circular productive and economic processes. This approach would raise the quality of the production system in ecological terms and also reduce production costs.

A "co-planning of production" model will be applied, stabilising producer members' income and cost-saving by consumers in terms of a discount. This process will regard the "ultra-local" farmers and it will be developed in two phases. In the first phase, two months before the start of the agricultural season, consumers must indicate their weekly food needs (expressed in kg) for each food class (bread, pasta, vegetables, fruit, meat, etc.); namely, their food preferences in terms of the type of food consumed. Due to a dedicated calculation system, consumers will compare their food needs with an average balanced diet based on the Mediterranean diet. Thus, consumers could analyse their consumption and modify it if they deem it appropriate. Consequently, a pre-order to the cooperative will be placed based on the consumer's food preferences using a matrix. Based on the previous year's prices, the system estimates the expense and consumers decide whether to continue the order. Then, they must indicate the supply period: three, six months, or one year to simplify logistics for producers.

The second phase develops into participation paths to decide the prices of the products together. A "commission of members" (producers and consumers) will be created to define the annual price of food produced by farmer members. The definitive price from the co-design process will consider (1) the production costs and an agreed percentage surplus concerning the average national unitary income for the crop or food supplied; (2) the processing and marketing costs; (3) the replication or dissemination costs of the project (opening new Food Villages); (4) the discounts extended to members based on their degree of participation.

Once the prices are defined, the consumers can confirm, cancel, or modify their order. Once the order is confirmed, consumers will receive the products on a weekly basis, from the moment of harvest.

This process of price formation, excluding profits, will enable increased accessibility to food (fair price), adequately pay producers (fair compensation), and disseminate environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.

The "commission of members" supports the Food Market purchasing agents in selecting products that will be bought from producers outside the Cooperative to ensure that the product prices respect the principles of fairness and accessibility. Every three months, the commission will check if there is a need to revise selling prices.

The Food Market will be structured following the model of FCPS that requires each member to work three hours a month within it to buy products.

This model is now widely tested. It has yielded significant results both in creating social aggregation, a sense of community and solidarity, and in promoting a fair and environmentally sustainable way of supplying food. In fact, it is possible to buy high-quality food, often organic and local, at affordable prices within the FCPS. In the Food Villages, there will be voluntary (non-compulsory) possibilities to participate in the FCPS model.

Members making their contributions to the Food Village system can have access to a dedicated discount. Specifically, those who participate in the "co-planning of production" will access up to 10% of discounts concerning the co-planned products, while a 20% discount on all products sold in the Food Market will be provided for those who participate in the FCPS. Consumers that adhere to both models will access up to 30% of discounts concerning the co-planned products and a 20% discount on all products sold in the Food Market.

Members that participate in none of these activities, will be allowed to purchase and participate in all initiatives (educational activities, social events, etc.), while the consumers that are not members will be allowed only to purchase.

The "Food Villages" could represent "solidarity communities", namely, social spaces where reciprocity is practised and one takes care of the other. Initiatives to meet the needs of the weaker social groups and emancipate those with difficulty in integration, including campaigns to satisfy fundamental human rights, promoting interculturality and interreligiousness, work placement, right to housing, and food support (see the Last-Minute Market (https://www.lastminutemarket.it/) (accessed on 15 July 2021) experience and Banco Alimentare (https://www.bancoalimentare.it/it) (accessed on 15 July 2021), will be supported.

The community dimension and values expressed by the Food Villages and the technical, logistic, and governance models on which they are based on make Food Villages a real CE and ECG prototype. Therefore, to measure the impact of this model on the socio-economic and environmental fabric, the Food Villages will adhere to the guidelines of the ECG. Moreover, they will carry out the "Common Good Balance Sheet" annually. The "Common Good Balance Sheet" will also allow the Cooperative to foresee actions to improve Common Good and redirect the production processes of the partner farms of the Food Villages for the common good.
