UPFARM Project – Seeding Regenerative Futures

Unlocking the Potential of Social Farming for Sustainable and Inclusive Jobs

Purpose of the Project

UPFARM is dedicated to the development of social farming as an innovative tool for creating inclusive, sustainable, and regenerative jobs for long-term unemployed individuals in Tuscany.

It addresses the challenges of vulnerable groups and builds a supportive environment that enables inclusion, empowerment, and quality employment within the local economy.

It is based on creating infrastructure that positions social farming as an important regional development potential.

Main Objectives of the Project

Develop infrastructure of knowledge, new methods, tools, and participatory governance models to strengthen social farming.
Establish four territorial Living Labs – two leading and two follower labs – focused on connecting local stakeholders.
Enhance stakeholder competencies and develop a new inclusion model for long-term unemployed individuals in social farming environments.
Enable at least 40 integrations into quality jobs.
Create guidelines for transferring and scaling the model to other regions and EU countries.

Key Activities

The project encompasses several interconnected sets of activities:

Establishment of territorial Living Labs based on the quadruple-helix model of collaboration between the public sector, businesses, civil society, and academia.
Co-creation of methods, tools, and pilot programs, first implemented in leading labs and then transferred to follower labs.
Training, mentoring, and personalized support for long-term unemployed individuals.
Development of innovative employment pathways in social enterprises and social farms.
Transnational cooperation and exchange of good practices with partners from Austria, France, Greece, and Slovenia.
Preparation of guidelines, protocols, and strategic documents to enable broader implementation of the model at the European level.

Partnership

Project leader is ANCI Toscana, with a consortium of 15 partners from Italy, Austria, France, Greece, and Slovenia.

Key partners include:

Research institutions (e.g., University of Pisa – Department of Veterinary Sciences),
Regional and local authorities (e.g., Regione Toscana, Municipality of Capannori),
Social enterprises and social farms (e.g., CALAFATA, ARNERA),
Health and social consortia (Società della Salute Pisana, Valdinievole, Fiorentina Sud-Est),
International support organizations (Impact Hub GmbH, Reseau ASTRA, P2P Lab),
Employment Service of Slovenia (ESS) as the Slovenian partner.

The 16th associated partner is ARTI – the Tuscan Regional Employment Agency with an important expert role.