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The Role of Agency in the Emergence and Development of Social Innovations in Rural Areas. Analysis of Two Cases of Social Farming in Italy and The Netherlands

Cristina Dalla Torre, Elisa Ravazzoli, M.W.C. Dijkshoorn-Dekker, Nico Polman, Mariana Melnykovych, Elena Pisani, Francesca Gori, Riccardo Da Re, Kamini Vicentini, Laura Secco · 2020 · Sustainability

Summary. This paper examines how agency—the ability to turn challenges into opportunities—drives social innovation in rural agriculture. Researchers studied two social farming cases in Italy and the Netherlands, developing a framework to evaluate agency dimensions using both quantitative and qualitative data. The findings show that a strong innovation idea, agency resilience, and the agency's embeddedness in local context are critical for social innovations to emerge and develop in rural areas.

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Torre, C. D., Ravazzoli, E., Dijkshoorn-Dekker, M., Polman, N., Melnykovych, M., Pisani, E., Gori, F., Re, R. D., Vicentini, K., & Secco, L.. (2020). The Role of Agency in the Emergence and Development of Social Innovations in Rural Areas. Analysis of Two Cases of Social Farming in Italy and The Netherlands. Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114440

Details

DOI
10.3390/su12114440
Countries
Italy, Netherlands
Regions
Europe
Categories
innovation-theory, food-systems, regional-innovation-systems
Added
2026-04-28