Food, integrating urban and agricultural dynamics in Pisa, Italy

Food concerns are reshaping the links between urban and agricultural dynamics. They are emerging as significant issues at the interface between public policies and local initiatives that are in turn establishing new approaches in urban planning and land use. Food occupies a concomitant position as an agricultural product of periurban areas, the principal commodity of a supply system, and a focus of community projects. But does this mean that it acts as an integrating element in an agricultural system? Drawing on data from the research project, ANR-DAUME, which focuses on the sustainability of urban agriculture in Mediterranean cities, we analyse the urban agricultural system of Pisa, Italy, in terms of a geo-agronomical model based on a triad of actors, activities, and spaces. This model highlights the diversity of agricultural food production, the hybridization of sales, distribution networks, and the multifunctionality of organizations involved in various related food projects. These aspects combine in a web of relationships that infuse Pisa’s urban agricultural system with new abilities to transform and adapt to evolving dynamics, showing that food can play the role of a common denominator, integrating actors from these diverse worlds and transforming the dynamics that influence land use and development in the territory.