Cooperation in Rural Areas as a Local System Development Opportunity

The development of rural areas requires the adoption of technology innovation and market approach strategies without departing from the specific features of local production systems, such as agricultural practices and the wealth of knowledge of operators. It is even better the exploitation of these resources to characterize the competitive positioning of territorial systems. In this framework, the cooperative Rinascita, which works in an internal rural area of Sicily region (Southern Italy), represents an attempt to maintain agricultural activities, traditions and rural culture as well as to promote and contribute to the development of the area by giving value to and promoting, a typical local production: the “pomodoro siccagno”. Such type of tomato, not a very remunerative kind of product, is grown in areas where alternative crops are few or not available. The aim of the paper is to investigate, through the empirical analysis of a case study, on the capacity of the agricultural cooperative sector to undertake innovative processes and to activate multiplicative processes of local development. The importance of the cooperative Rinascita is real and outstanding: despite being still quite modest in terms of quantity of processed tomato and turnover, it has allowed the members of the cooperative to process and directly sell their tomato, freeing themselves from commercial intermediaries operating in the area.