Urban agriculture as a tool for sustainable social recovery of metropolitan slum area in Italy: case Catania

The aim of the paper was to analyze the 'Orti e arte' project realized by the Municipality of Catania to provide a peripheral and degraded district (Librino with over 70,000 inhabitants) with spaces devoted to urban gardens. When completed, the project will see the construction of urban gardens for 50,000 m(2). The survey was carried out in 2017; to evaluate the results of the initiative, a multidisciplinary approach has been used, which has taken into account environmental, economic, social, agronomic and biological aspects. The survey of the first 10 lots produced has highlighted the coexistence of traditional techniques and innovative means. The crop scenario is characterized by high biodiversity and dominated by specialty crops and landraces. In relation to the degraded area where the urban gardens are located, they could represent the hope of having safe spaces, landscape improvement, and a different form of social inclusion. The most important benefits in the social aspect are the maintenance of public spaces at no cost, the social inclusion, the economics of saving food and the short chain while under the environmental aspect the protection of biodiversity and the health safety become important.