Center for Behavioral Sciences and Mental Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 00161 Rome, Italy.
E-labora, 33170 Pordenone, Italy.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Sep 19;16(18):3501. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16183501.
Social farming represents a hybrid governance model in which public bodies, local communities, and economic actors act together to promote health and social inclusion in rural areas. Although relational variables are crucial to foster social farm performance, the relational system in which farms are embedded has still not been fully described. Using social network analysis, here we map the nature of the links of a selected sample of social farms operating in Northern Italy. We also explore possible network variations following specific actions taken to potentiate local social farming initiatives. The results show a certain degree of variability in terms of the extension and features of the examined networks. Overall, the actions taken appear to be significant to enlarge and diversify farms' networks. Social farming has the potential to provide important benefits to society and the environment and to contrast vulnerability in rural areas. Being able to create social and economic networks of local communities, social farming may also represent an innovative way to respond to the cultural shift from institutional psychiatry to community-based mental health care. This study emphasizes the critical role played by network facilitation in diversifying actors, promoting heterogeneous relationships, and, in turn, system complexity.
社会农业代表了一种混合治理模式，其中公共机构、地方社区和经济行为者共同行动，以促进农村地区的健康和社会包容。尽管关系变量对于促进社会农业的绩效至关重要，但社会农业所嵌入的关系系统尚未得到充分描述。本文运用社会网络分析方法，绘制了意大利北部部分社会农业的联系性质。我们还探讨了特定行动对当地社会农业倡议产生影响后的可能的网络变化。结果表明，在所考察的网络的延伸和特征方面存在一定程度的可变性。总体而言，所采取的行动似乎对于扩大和多样化农场的网络具有重要意义。社会农业有可能为社会和环境带来重要利益，并遏制农村地区的脆弱性。社会农业能够为当地社区创建社会和经济网络，也可能代表了一种应对从机构精神病学向基于社区的精神卫生保健转变的创新方式。本研究强调了网络促进在多样化参与者、促进异质关系方面的关键作用，进而促进系统复杂性。
