Abstract

The current environmental crisis requires our society to radically rethink the ways we produce and consume goods and services. For decades, the current model of the agri-food chain has been discussed and criticized at several levels. It contrasts the standardized and globalized model and encourages ‘alternative’ and less impactful distribution and consumption models. The so-called Alternative Food Networks – grassroots initiatives based on more sustainable production and consumption models, promoters of trust-based relationships between consumers and producers – have gradually taken root worldwide. In Italy, these experiences have been surfacing since the beginning of the nineties, also thanks to the organic agriculture movements’ pressure, social cooperation, and the organizations of the alter-globalist movement. Often studied as nuclei bearers of social innovation, these subjects try to break the pact with fetish consumption, transforming practices and collectively building different, ecosustainable, and eco-compatible visions of the future. Within this framework, starting from two Italian case studies that include a group of Community-Supported Agriculture and nine Participatory Guarantee Systems, the intent of this essay is to reveal the typically pedagogical character of these initiatives that, concretely, become places of transformative learning, laboratories of ecological citizenship and gymnasium of democracy