Organic in Europe: Prospects and Developments

In 2016/2017 the European organic food and farming sector continued to excel both in terms of organic production and market growth as well as the latest developments in European Union (EU) food and farming policy. Data for 2016 shows the European organic food market recording significant growth – increasing by 11.4 percent (EU: 12.0 percent). At the same time, the organic sector faces a number of challenges, notably that the growth rates in organic production continue to lag behind the dynamic growth seen within the organic food market. In the public policy arena at the EU level, there are some opportunities for the organic sector to capitalise on the growing awareness and interest in tackling sustainability concerns in the agri-food sector amongst policymakers, but there are also challenges. These prospects and developments for organic in Europe are explored in this chapter

Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa\u27s Mining Industry: Redressing the Legacy of Apartheid

Corporate Social Responsibility is particularly relevant in the mining industry globally given the industry’s extractive nature. In the mining industry, significant pressure comes from interest groups and nonprofit organizations that have a tendency to target mining companies for their alleged lack of consideration and accountability to the environment and in the communities in which they operate. A push for CSR in the mining industry is especially prevalent in South Africa where mining has dominated the country’s economy for so long. CSR can help rid South Africa’s mining industry of its long history of instability and conflict that characterized class and race relations in the country. While historically neither the profits nor the costs of the mining industry have been equitably distributed among stakeholders, CSR programs can be a powerful mechanism in restoring social justice in South Africa, as seen by the mining company Anglo American

Platform Organisations in Social Innovation: A Lot of Old Wine in a Bottle

The article investigates the influence of platform ideas, schemes, and production models outside the high-tech industry. To do this, it studies the organisational models of seven social innovation initiatives active in Italy in different sectors and promoted by different actors. The initiatives, even if non-high-tech, can be put in order as platform organisations because they host interactions between a variety of organisations and people, differently arranged with respect to them and largely autonomous and heterogeneous in terms of their interests, social networks, and purposes. The main purpose of this research has three sub-objectives. The first is to observe the development of extensive 'platformisation' processes of production systems. The second is to deepen trends in the high-tech sector through the observation of the non-high-tech sector. Finally, to create useful and usable knowledge to help political parties, trade unions, associations and governments plan solutions to protect workers of the platforms. Using a critical approach, the article reveals that these organisations are less innovative than their supporters report for three reasons. Firstly, because the concept of community is abused to describe these organisations, which present themselves mainly as coalitions or networks because their members lack a common sense of membership; secondly, because the research downsizes the presence of prosumers and peer-to-peer production and describes production and consumption processes that take place at separate times and in which peer production is only a marginal part of the production reality. In the end, because of these organisations work thanks to the job of a small group of people with high cognitive skills and relational capital that trigger production by activating, managing and capitalising a small crowd of workers

Organic in Europe: Recent Developments

In 2017, the European organic food and farming sector continued to excel both in terms of organic production and market growth. Data for 2017 (for full data see page 216) shows the European organic food market recording significant growth – increasing by more than ten percent to 37.3 billion. At the same time, the organic sector faces a number of challenges, notably that the growth rates in organic area, in spite of recent stronger growth, continues to lag behind the dynamic growth seen within the organic food market (Figure 68). A major milestone in 2018 was the publication of the new European Union rules on organic production and labelling of organic products in May, and in June 2018, the European Commission launched its proposal for the Common Agricultural Policy for the period 2021 to 2027

Coco A. (2018), Politica e Città in Trasformazione: il Caso di Bari [Politics and Cities in Transformation: The Case of Bari], Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, pp. 198.

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Trends and Challenges of the Italian Third Sector in the Field of Community Assets Regeneration. New Convergences between Public Benefit and Social Entrepreneurship

The Paper investigates the challenges of the Italian Third Sector through the lens of their in-volvement in the management of community assets, such as when real estate and public spaces are re-generated on the purpose of activities of social interest, for instance confiscated properties to organized criminality, state-owned, religious corporations, and companies. Adopting the methodology of 'nested analysis', the paper explores quantitative data obtained from the ISTAT Census of non profit institutions, and qualitative data obtained from more than 50 case studies dealt with in recent scientific publications. Subsequently, the study further deepens the evidence emerged through the presentation and discussion of two case studies carried out by the authors: the Ex-Asilo Filangieri in Naples and Forte Marghera in Ven-ice. The Paper highlighted that actions of the Third Sector in the field of regeneration of community assets for social aims have not to be treated as nonprofit "industry", in which general trends towards publicness and entrepreneurship are very noticeable. On the contrary, it looks like a field in which new forms of the Third Sector are emerging, and we can sort them as "enterprising community"