In an increasingly urbanised world, where direct contact with nature has become a privilege enjoyed by few, multifunctional farms that combine educational services with social activities, both service-oriented and inclusive (as defined by Lombardy’s regional regulations), are emerging as catalysts for meaningful social and environmental change. These spaces, conceived as communal and collective environments, go far beyond the simple role of hosting: they become genuine centres of empowerment, fostering social justice, collective well-being, and sustainability. Every activity carried out within them becomes an opportunity for personal growth, inclusion, and the reclaiming of the stories that connect us to the land, serving as a driving force for social and cultural transformation. When we speak of Sowing Possibilities, we are referring not only to the metaphor of agricultural sowing but also to an invitation to lay the foundations for a more inclusive, conscious, and resilient society. We recognise the land not merely as a productive resource to be exploited quantitatively, as appears to be the case under the current political system, but as a space for relationship, growth, and human redemption: a gesture of trust in the future, an educational act, and a form of political resistance.

From Land to Community: Agriculture, Social Inclusion, and Hope

Although the 2023–2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) represents a potential turning point for European agriculture, opening up, for the first time in a more structured manner, to the social dimension of farming, its limitations and shortcomings remain evident. The inequity of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) remains one of the most debated issues in the European rural context, prompting concern among farmers, activists, and peasant networks, who denounce the unequal distribution of resources and its detrimental impact on the social and environmental sustainability of agriculture. The problem is not merely technical but structural: it remains the case that 80% of European agricultural funds are received by just 20% of farms, primarily the large agro-industrial companies that dominate the market. At the conference Rethinking Market Regulation for the Agroecological Transition in Europe, organised by the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) and held in Brussels on 3–4 March 2025, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen, reiterated the importance of ensuring that CAP payments reach those who genuinely need them. According to Hansen, funds should not end up in the hands of large agri-food corporations, but should instead support small-scale farmers, family-run businesses, and younger generations seeking to enter the profession. The current system continues to reward scale rather than the social, ecological, or cultural value of agriculture, penalising those who adopt more sustainable and locally rooted approaches, such as agroecology, peasant farming, multifunctional agriculture, or proximity-based models. These practices are systematically excluded, marginalised, or left to struggle without adequate support, despite their clear potential to foster a more inclusive and sustainable form of agriculture.

In Italy, social agriculture emerges not merely as a welfare instrument or an extension of the agricultural sector, but primarily through grassroots networks and initiatives driven by individual and collective sensitivity. These include social cooperatives, solidarity-based purchasing groups, therapeutic communities, organisations supporting people with disabilities, and movements related to critical consumption and alternative economies. This bottom-up character sets it apart from other, more “institutionalised” European models.

For the “right to inclusion” to be more than an empty phrase, it is essential to reflect on the responsibility of farms that wish to embrace this challenge: to create contexts that are truly sustainable, economically, environmentally, and socially. These contexts must possess specific features capable of meeting the fundamental needs of people in vulnerable situations (and beyond), as well as responding to the characteristics of the surrounding environmental context. To make this possible, targeted training is essential, something the CAP should actively promote and support. Farms should, for example, take into account the challenges involved in offering anticipatory models of the experience to workers and occasional participants. These include difficulties in interpreting others' intentions and in organising one’s actions into coherent sequences. Farm environments must be both stimulating and orderly, meeting the need for predictability, comprehensibility, coherence, structure, and organisation, all of which are essential to ensure learning experiences and participation are accessible to all. They must adopt inclusive language free from stereotypes and prejudice, and provide thorough training in safety and first aid. They should also promote local and seasonal markets.
The rural context is particularly well-suited to meeting these needs: it offers a simple environment that is nonetheless rich in stimuli and meaningful activities, marked by clear boundaries in terms of beginnings, endings, and objectives. Daily tasks, such as cleaning, feeding animals, weeding, and fertilising, follow a rhythm and predictability that naturally align with the need for coherence and structure, especially for individuals in vulnerable situations. However, the challenge lies not only in identifying appropriate physical spaces but also in adopting the right cultural and relational approach. Caught between the risk of vague inclusive rhetoric and the excessive technicisation of interventions, a central issue remains unresolved: the authentic recognition of the other, in their wholeness, with their vulnerabilities, specificities, and unique ways of being in the world.

At the heart of this vision is the thinking of Antonio Onorati, farmer and activist, who asserts that the right to land is fundamental to ensuring equity and dignity. He argues that peasant practices should not be marginalised, but instead recognised and valued as instruments of social justice and democratic participation. Educational farms should not be seen merely as learning environments, but as spaces of relationship, resistance, and transformation. Reconnecting people to the land means restoring value to agricultural labour, addressing urban–rural inequalities, and promoting a food culture that is fair, supportive, and sustainable. This is a form of agriculture that includes, because it recognises everyone as an active participant in a food system that is just,  accessible, and environmentally respectful. This approach, therefore, goes far beyond the traditional notion of food education, evolving into a social movement that advances social justice through the human–land connection. Without the active involvement of local communities, sustainable development is not possible. This principle lies at the core of all genuine social and cultural transformation: development cannot be imposed from above but must emerge from the participation and commitment of the communities who live it. The consequences of top-down, so-called sustainable solutions, often met with resistance and protest, are already all too evident.

A compelling example of this approach is the model offered by social gardens, which emerge from the desire to address a range of community needs, above all, the need to rebuild social ties, reduce inequalities, and foster shared well-being. Participants in these initiatives often come from complex or marginalised backgrounds. The social garden offers them an opportunity for personal growth and redemption, becoming a place of encounter where differences are transcended through the shared commitment to creating something together. In these spaces, the land becomes a symbol of hope, where every seed planted represents a possibility for change. Cultivating the garden is not merely a practical task, but a symbolic act of resistance and resilience, beginning with the very choice of one seed over another.

Experiences of Social Gardens: Well-being, Connection, and Social Justice as Tangible Outcomes

Social gardens represent one of the most effective means of promoting social empowerment. Empowerment refers to the process through which individuals acquire the skills and confidence needed to make decisions, solve problems, and improve their living conditions. In the context of social gardens, empowerment is fostered through active participation in agricultural tasks as well as in the management of the community itself. Taking part in a social garden involves developing practical competencies, such as plant care, land management, planning, and organisation. However, the impact goes beyond the practical: learning to collaborate, engage in dialogue, and contribute to a shared project helps to build confidence in oneself and trust in others. Individuals who are often socially isolated or vulnerable may feel empowered to face the challenges of daily life with a strengthened sense of self-efficacy and personal worth.

Social justice is also a fundamental dimension of social gardens. These spaces are established with the aim of promoting equity and ensuring that everyone has access to essential resources such as healthy food and opportunities for personal development. Those who benefit most from such initiatives are often individuals living in disadvantaged contexts, such as peripheral urban areas or low-income communities, where access to nutritious food is limited. The social garden is a place where the right to healthy, sustainable food is recognised as a universal right. Sharing the experience of cultivating and harvesting one’s own produce enables people to reclaim food sovereignty and reduce dependence on large-scale distribution chains. Furthermore, the social garden fosters awareness of economic and social inequalities, encouraging the fair distribution of resources and the active participation of all in building a more just and inclusive community.

I conclude by presenting two initiatives I have launched in recent years on my farm, both inspired by these values. These are two shared gardens, open to a range of community actors, social cooperatives, nursery schools, primary schools, and other local educational organisations. Each group takes responsibility for a section of the garden: a themed flowerbed or an experiential path. Some plant vegetables, others build decorative elements; some gather flowers for drying and turning into herbal infusions; others care for aromatic plants, create a biodiversity pond, or design a sensory trail. 

The garden and its spaces evolve over time and with the people who inhabit them. It does not belong to a single author but is shaped through layers of care, gestures, and shared meaning. 

Each participant leaves a trace of themselves: a favourite plant, a personalised fence, an aquatic plant, a fish, a sowing ritual. Those who follow encounter these contributions, preserve them, reinterpret them, and help them to grow further. This generates a dialogue between generations, cultures, and differences, where the land becomes a silent witness to every human passage. The project includes a shared calendar of seasonal activities: sowing, harvesting, festivals rooted in both local and global traditions, and creative and sensory workshops. Participants learn by observing the rhythm of the seasons, working with their hands, listening to stories shared by others, whether fellow participants or educators, and discovering the value of slowness and attentive care. Social cooperatives involve people with disabilities in pathways of work inclusion or therapeutic integration, offering a non-stigmatising, indeed, empowering environment in which everyone’s contribution is essential to the overall balance of the space. Activities are carefully monitored and evaluated against learning objectives, with personalised criteria of mastery guiding each participant’s progress. From this foundation, more explicitly educational activities were developed in parallel, aimed at local primary schools. The social garden, and more broadly, the farm itself, was presented and experienced as a shared space for education and personal growth, becoming an ideal setting in which to integrate deeper philosophical reflection. During the 2024/2025 school year, inspired by Barbara Franco’s Philosophy for the Youngest and Luca Mori’s Outdoor Education with Philosophy, the Philosophy for Children (P4C) method was applied to the exploration of agricultural life. This approach provided a unique opportunity to stimulate critical thinking through dialogue and observation of nature, transforming the agricultural experience into a form of philosophical inquiry. In this context, Heraclitus’s thought, particularly his idea that "nature loves to hide" served as an invitation to explore change and the mystery of reality. It reminded us that not everything is immediately comprehensible, but reveals itself gradually through time, attention, and observation.

Microscopes, lenses, and sensory analysis become tools of exploration and methods of inquiry. Alongside them, special companions accompany us on this journey: Descartes, who, pulling an image of the agricultural world from his envelope, places us in a position of doubt and reflection; Socrates, who, with his dialectical method, encourages dialogue and the search for understanding through confrontation; Edith Stein, who sees in the social garden and animal farm a space where empathy and lived experience connect us to others, to animals, and the world, a place where a community grows together, nourished not only by food but by authentic human relationships and a deep sense of belonging and mutual care. Hans Jonas, concerned with humanity’s responsibility towards nature and today’s generations towards those of the future, inspires the use of recycled materials to sustain activities, thanks in part to the first-year pupils of Montedine (CR) primary school, who were the first to join the project.

These farms, and they are not few, represent far more than parcels of land eligible for CAP contributions. They are genuine laboratories of social change, offering opportunity and hope to those who have experienced exclusion in its many forms (perhaps simply for being women). They promote well-being, empowerment, and social justice, and facilitate dialogue across professions, disciplines, and generations. In a world increasingly marked by inequality, they offer a model of a possible community, one grounded in collaboration, autonomy, and respect for all forms of life: human, plant, and animal.