Training Programme: Social Dimension of Entrepreneurship. Administration and Human Resources
1. Introduction: Businesses and Social Agriculture
Skills
- Acquire the general knowledge about the company, definition, constitution, kinds, productive factors.
- Identify the company to be realized.
- Know the mechanisms of the personnel selection process through interviews, curriculum vitae and covering letters.
- Know how to create a staff that works together and values the “Diversity” of everyone. (quality total)
Objectives
- Create an entrepreneurial mentality towards the enhancement of local products.
- Create a mentality addressed to the recovery of areas to be reclaimed with organic or biodynamic agriculture.
- Create a mentality that enhances the potential and competences of categories of people ,who fall in the most vulnerable and outcast section of the population with entrepreneurial projects of inclusion even of regular refugees or immigrants.
2. Companies
In the Italian economic system there are about 5 million and 200,000 companies , but what are companies?
A company is one of the economic subjects that, starting from the definition of an entrepreneur according to the article 2082 of the civil code “The entrepreneur is the person that professionally carries out an economic activity, organized for the purpose of production or exchange of goods or services “, is distinguished in various types depending on the activity carried out.
The economic activities
To this end it is appropriate to know the various economic activities of a company: produce, exchange and invest.
Production involves the transformation of raw materials (resources) into finished products, therefore into goods and services, in space and time.
At present, productive services are widely used, meant as professional services carried out by other economic subjects (for example banks or insurance agencies, etc.) in relation to the companies themselves. The finished products, either goods or services are intended for sale either wholesale or retail.
A company in order to start its business must provide for various forms of investment, through the identification of the production factors: nature, labour and capital; indispensable for the initial phase of establishment.
PRODUCTION FACTORS … NEWS
Over time, innovative production factors have been added, considered important for the entrepreneurial activity: technology, know-how and the skills of all the subjects of the company.
A fundamental role is currently played by the so-called Country System, ie laws, infrastructures, educational training, economic resources and political capacities,
necessary to guarantee development and today we will say the momentum required by companies in the south to take off.
3. Types of companies
From the classification of companies, as provided for by the Civil Code, in commercial, agricultural, small and family businesses, and considering the economic and employment situation of the southern regions and in particular of Campania, the agricultural ones are of particular interest.
In fact, taking into account the evolving system, companies to support the globalized market must adopt the most modern features identified in the respect of the environment, in the adoption of streamlined and dynamic structures, in the process and product innovation, creativity and quality , in the attention to human resources and to the customer, finally of great importance in the social commitment.
4. How to start a business
Considering that in Italy we have about 5,200,000 companies and that there is often a closure of them, as well as the creation of new ones, it is increasingly important to attract an interest in entrepreneurship and creativity in the new generations. To this end, having evaluated the business idea we need to know:
1. Who to contact for advice
The Chambers of Commerce, in particular industries, handicrafts and agriculture are public bodies, which follow the system of companies, taking care of their development at the local level. So a reference, to create a company, from an administrative, informative, monitoring and especially educational point of view, is a network structure, the Unioncamere, which provides information on all the national territory.
2. How to register a company
For the registration of a company it is necessary to follow a procedure, today simplified at the Chamber of Commerce, with a Single Communication (Comunica) all the fulfilments are made electronically to the Register of companies.
This single Communication must include: the model of the communication; model for the business register; model for the revenue agency; model for the Inps; model for Inail; Scia model.
3. How to prepare a business plan
In the initial phase (start-up) it is very important for the entrepreneur to consider the forms of financing, which can be internal and external and all the considerations useful for ensuring the safe start of economic activity. The business plan allows to do a series of analyses concerning the risks and benefits to face the challenges of the market.
The ten points indicated by Confartigianato, a few years ago, are: description of the project, legal form, social structure, market analysis, marketing strategy, tools, company organization, financial plan, promotion and advertising, motivation.
Crowdfunding
With regard to the forms of financing, crowdfunding can be useful, that is, a public collection of funds to support initiatives and projects of various kinds, which makes it possible to insert itself on online platforms with your project and possibly attract the attention of possible lenders.
So a new channel for funding is the Eppela site, one of the main Italian crowdfunding platforms.
Benefits
In addition, special facilities are provided for young people and women who wish to start their own business project; for the current year with the stability law, young entrepreneurship funding 2018 was set up.
Hence tax breaks and loans to help, support and promote the employment of young people through institutions that enable self-entrepreneurship;
funding includes the possibility of participating in the call to open a “zero interest rate” company called the “zero interest rate incentive”.
Furthermore, among the types of funding provided by Invitalia, the National Agency for the attraction of investments and business development include: Cultura Crea, Smart & Smart Italia, Selfiemployment, Best; Fertility.
5. The turning point in the agricultural sector
Focusing on the results of the OECD Focus inequality and growth, we can see that the economic growth has slowed down in 21 countries, including Italy, creating social inequalities, therefore an entrepreneurial turnaround in favour of those aimed at a social agriculture could boost businesses in favour of the labour market.
The agri-food sector has a very wide and diversified production chain that goes from agriculture to processing, to packaging and to the final distribution of the product, and it is in Italy characterized by a progressive reduction of the employed in agriculture.
If we record these data on one hand, the green economy, the social policies that influence the agricultural enterprise, the structural funds with rural development plans, the improvement of rural families and the diffusion of knowledge of local rural culture are spreading on the other.
The social agriculture between agricultural companies and the third sector
According to article 2135 of the civil code, “main agricultural enterprises are those that cultivate the cultivation of the land, forestry, animal breeding, but also related agricultural activities”.
They are closely linked to the Third Sector the set of collective aggregations or bodies, constantly evolving, whose main purpose is the implementation of the constitutional principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, thanks to the approval of the law 18 August 2015 n.14 which gives space in our system to the social agriculture sector.
Social agriculture can be defined as a plurality of experiences, not referable to a unitary model, in which various socio-health, educational, training and work insertion, recreational, initiatives are integrated in the agricultural activity and are directed in particular to the disadvantaged sections of the population at risk of marginalization.
The selection of personnel to be included in the production activities must take into account the Leit motiv of the law, considering the curriculum vitae and the interview that will be necessary to identify motivated personnel and skills to start a collaboration more and more of integration and inclusion.
Actually, agriculture has the ability to produce not only food, services and goods that can be evaluated economically, but also a well-defined “social utility”: from the protection of the environment and the landscape, to the protection and safeguard of the territory up to the inclusive potential, even “therapeutic”, that the care of the earth and animals can induce in particular subjects. Wanting to systematize, we can identify three theoretical models:
- Agricultural companies aimed at the market (for example: “productive” companies which at the same time provide accompaniment and training to the employment of low- contractual workers).
- Therapeutic and rehabilitative structures (example: companies that provide “structured” services such as hippotherapy);
- Models of openness to the social system in which agriculture is the means for the provision of personal services (educational farms, commitments for the elderly, etc.).
Finally, it is important to underline the paragraph 5 of the same Article 1: the activities listed above may be carried out in association with all third sector entities, from social enterprises to social promotion associations, without prejudice to the applicable regulations and facilities to each of the subjects referred to. The legislator seems to want to offer an additional instrument represented by the possibility of establishing a form of collaboration between the agricultural enterprise and the non-profit organization in order to better carry out such activities that could therefore be carried out like this:
- Directly from an agricultural entrepreneur, single or associated;
- Directly from a non-profit organization, which assumes the status of agricultural entrepreneur: in this case, the rules on agriculture should apply for tax purposes;
- By an agricultural entrepreneur (single or associated) in association with a non-profit organization, which maintains its fiscal discipline.
According to many, social agriculture is one of the most innovative tools able to combine the needs of welfare renewal with the need for the development of multifunctional and modern agriculture. in recent years many initiatives have been promoted and developed at local and regional level that have given social farming more and more the aspect of solid, mature and well- established experience on the territory. In Campania, many subjects, both public and private, already act in this area or who are at the first cognitive approach, in line with the reference standards such as the regional law on farms and social gardens, namely the Law No. 5 of 2012 and with the national law n.141 of 2015.
6. Social agriculture, at the start the educational process of confcooperative campania
As part of a multi-sector project, Confcooperative Campania organizes a free and itinerant cycle of seminars in social agriculture every year.
To defeat the social exclusion of vulnerable groups of the population through social farming, an innovative practice that combines social activities with agricultural resources. To disseminate and support this activity, carried out mostly by social cooperatives and public bodies, Confcooperative Campania periodically organizes a practical and theoretical course, free and itinerant, on the topic.
The project starts within the activity of some Federations (Fedagri, Federsolidarietà, Federabitazione, Federazione Sanità and Federcultura), in collaboration with the National Social Agriculture Forum, and with the support of the provincial structures and cooperatives that have accumulated years and years of experience on the field.
The course is aimed at members and all young people who intend to approach this new practice, and is organized on two fronts. On the one hand it provides the coordinates (legislation, planning) for the activity, on the other hand it puts experiences into circulation through the direct testimonies of the people who dedicate themselves to social agriculture.
7. Glossary
- Company: contract in which two or more people confer goods and services for the exercise of an economic activity with the aim of dividing its profits.
- Financing: sum of money provided by public or private bodies against a specific request, containing the conditions for obtaining the financing.
- INPS: national social security institution.
- INAIL: national institute of occupational accidents.
- SCIA: Certificate of start of activity.
- Social agriculture: primary economic sector that implements the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity in entrepreneurial activities.
8. Final activities
Activity 1: They are productive factors:
- Nature, capital and money
- Resources, nature and work
- Nature, capital and work
Activity 2: In what article of the Civil Code is the company indicated?
- Art. 3456
- Art. 2082
- Art. 1324
Activity 3: Which of the following is not a necessary feature to start a business:
- Respect for the environment
- Product innovation
- Attention to human resources
- Generality
Activity 4: Describe the procedure for starting a business.
Activity 5: What does Social Farming foresee, according to the spirit of the law 18/08/2015 No. 14?