It is not only an essential resource for our nutrition, but also a source of work and personal fulfillment: the land, when respected and cultivated with love, can help us to overcome the challenges of our time – ranging from the economic crisis to unemployment and economic or gender inequalities. This is what José Alberto Mujica Cordano, the former "poor president" of Uruguay and author of La felicità al potere (Happiness to Power, Italian edition), believes in.

Mujica, who spoke recently at Expo at the event called Social Agriculture and Microcredit sponsored by the Ministry of  Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies of Italy, has talked about the benefits of social economy as a new production model: "Even though it produces less than the industrial economy, the social economy creates value and is good for small farmers because it reduces the production chain. It brings food from the field to the consumer and this way greater sustainability is ensured".

The main thing about social farming, according to Mujica, is that it reminds us that to possess wealth it is not enough to “put capital together”, because what makes wealth is “putting together humanity”: skilled and intelligent human beings, able to “speak” to the land, that they perceive as alive and unable to thrive without the intelligence of man, his “listening” abilities and dedication. And if the land "needs love", the key role in its cultivation has been always played by women. As Mujica makes us remember: "There can be no agriculture if there is no woman. I pray for that historically rooted disparity between man and woman to disappear, and I think when it happens it will be very good for humanity".