Innovations vs. opposition: the women role in family farms regeneratioin process. Reading an Italian experience.

A large body of the literature pointed out the greatest importance of women role into rural development process to guarantee commercial farm survival. Indeed women management – in particular for family-run farms – proved a notable capability to catch new opportunities of income and, great skills in management regeneration offered by new links about society and rural areas. Contemporaneously, often the women management meets opposition in persistence of cultural factors which reflect chauvinist approach; this eventuality would appear emphasized in a territorial contests characterized by socio-economic marginalization. In this sense, one priority objective of rural development European policy is to support overcoming of such restrictions, by implementing female enterprise – connected or not in agricultural business – in rural land, or promoting women interest inside local network and formal - informal institutions that preside over governance systems. The goal of this paper is to deepen the dynamics that have characterized women management in Italian rural areas, and in particular in Lazio Regions, under three different scenery. First of all, examining the evolution of family and structural typologies related to farms, by informative estate of Italian agricultural census; deepening the issue of relationship about family and farm. Secondly, relating to policy use, examining investments made by a unbiased sample of regional, women managed, farms that availed of Rural Development Plan (RDP) by Lazio Regions. Lastly, utilizing a survey data collected in farming, we address our effort to enriching understanding of main factors of socio-economic conditioning that could affect women management performance,. This interpretation about connection produced by family behaviours, business strategies and external environment is confirmed by a reading of studied phenomenon in the light of a territorial stratification process made during RDP editing phase to identify homogeneous territorial groups where associate policy supply. These considerations will allow to take into consideration the occurrence of socio-economic and structural features of different territorial contexts, in the formulation of family, women managed farm strategies.