Agricultural cooperative “Co.r.ag.gio.”, an example of urban agriculture in Rome (Italy) as a resilient strategy against urban climate change.

In urban contexts, cultivated agricultural land increases permeability, improves positive atmospheric exchanges, protects the complexity of agricultural ecosystem and helps general resilience to urban climate changes. We present the Italian case study of the EU-FP7 funded project called “GLAMURS - Green Lifestyles, alternative models and upscaling regional sustainability” (www.glamurs.eu). GLAMURS investigates transitions to sustainable lifestyles and green economies, through an interdisciplinary approach in seven different regions of Europe. In the Lazio Region of Italy, the young agricultural cooperative "Co.R.Ag.Gio" (“Courage”), COoperativa Romana AGricoltura GIOvani (Roman Agricultural Cooperative of Youth), encourages citizens and institutions to conserve environmental heritages abandoned in the Roman agricultural outskirts. CoRAgGio was founded in 2011, as a free association of young people (farmers, agronomists, chefs, architects, day workers, industrial worker, anthropologists, educators). It promotes an original work perspective in this economic crisis, enhancing passions and experiences in agricultural and horticultural activities, teaching and training (educational farms, courses in sustainable agriculture), food (spreading good practices, 0-km production), crafts. It strives to make public land available to all citizens, and preserve agricultural soils from the expansion of the building sector. It promotes an agricultural urban model that is healthy, organic, multi-functional, replacing the degraded concrete buildings with a proposal of a new way of living, based on ecological concerns, respecting labour dignity, and social meanings of agriculture. The implications of promoting sustainable urban agriculture will be discussed, in terms of economic values, ecological services and food production, improvement of life quality, soil protection, earth resources and biodiversity conservation.