Evolving local agrifood initiatives within a territorial agrifood system: the case of Prato Province, Italy

Complexities and case-specific nature of territorial agrifood systems require urgent attention of both researchers and decision-makers to facilitate their adoption. The objective of this study is to provide advanced understanding and analysis of the perspective of urban and peri-urban farming through the lens of embeddedness in the life of the urban community. The study adopted Prato Province (Tuscany Region, Italy) as a case study area. Spatial analysis, in-depth semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders (N=9), field observations and discussions with local farmers (N=17) were deployed in the research. Drawing upon our research, we identified a wide diversity of unique, locally focused and rooted agrifood initiatives and innovative food networks connecting individual (or groups of) farmers with local people. Our findings suggest that observed farms tend to be highly differentially re-embedded to the urban space of Prato Province and its inhabitants. Mutual interconnectedness through jointly cooperating local agrifood initiatives truly contributes to a more sustainable shape of territorial agrifood system. Furthermore, our observations showed a clear tendency towards more sustainable land management in the region. We claim that well thought out and smart local food governance and systemic involvement of innovative territorial planning instruments, has potential to beneficially contribute to the formation of inspirational and transferrable sustainable agrifood systems.