the territory
The “Piana del Cibo” is the first intermunicipal food policy (IFP) in Italy. The area of the Plain of Lucca (within the province of Lucca, in the Tuscany region) encompasses both rural and urban areas and owns a well-defined historical, cultural, and landscape identity. Five out of seven municipalities in the area – very heterogeneous municipalities in terms of dimension, geographical features, and demographics – participate in the IFP, to reach out beyond their administrative and functional boundaries and carry out food-related policies in a joint manner. The process which led to the IFP started in 2018 with the signature of the MUFPP, followed by a participatory project called “CIRCULARIFOOD”, which involved about 300 different actors into the definition of the IFP Strategy approved by the five City Councils.
The IFP is formalised as a joint management of food policy functions (in Italy a specific policy instrument called “gestione associate delle funzioni”), combined with an elaborate, ad hoc structure of participatory governance. The IFP did not occur in a vacuum: food issues have been occupying civil society space in the Plain of Lucca since many years (Arcuri et al 2022) and well-established networks were already operating in diverse initiatives of short food supply chains, food sovereignty, urban agriculture, food poverty, and heritage foods
Case study referee
Sabrina Arcuri
Other participants
Francesca Galli
sabrina.arcuri[at]agr.unipi.it
Territorial food system
Type of region : Urban areas
Approximate size and population
160 000 inh (Plain of Lucca); 430 km².
Annual population growth rate is negative in the Province of Lucca (migration inflows partly compensate for natural negative growth rate).
Type of agriculture
Prevalence of small-medium farms (<5 ha; 5-10 ha); limited number of large farms (>59 ha) but they manage 31% of UAA in the Plain of Lucca (Source: Galli et al, forthcoming).
Vegetables and cereals; wine and olive oil prevalent on the hills; fodder production (but lack of a corresponding livestock chain).
Short circuits (and anteriority)
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Main social issues
8.5% of individuals were living in relative poverty in Tuscany, compared to 13.5% national feature in 2020. No data available at the Province level (Source: ISTAT).
Unequal access to good food; urban sprawl; unequal access to land.
Presence of agroecologial systems
Low prevalence of OA: 5% of UAA is organic and additional 4% in conversion (Source: Galli et al).
Attention paid to local varieties (links to traditional recipes)
Specific agri-food system dynamics and initiatives (and anteriority)
Alternative food networks initiatives (8 farmers’ markets, Solidarity Purchase Groups-GAS); online platforms for selling local produce.
Agrifood transition
Main stakes for the transition : Urban sprawl and soil sealing, loss of ecosystem services / Social inclusion; access to adequate and heathy nutrition for all / Promotion of the local agri-food system; opportunities for young farmers
Key obstacles to AE transition
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Leading actors in the transition
Municipal authorities (admin + politics); Several coops; catering industries; social farms; Researchers at University of Pisa and Florence; Laboratorio Sismondi; groups of farmers, CSOs (civil society organisations); Private citizens.
Institutionalisation of the agrifood transition
Local (municipal and inter-municipal)
Key initiatives
3 innovative initiatives
You will find here 3 original initiatives, among all those which allowed the transition of the territorial agri-food system and appear on the frieze-trajectory detailed below.
Calafata social coop and Conserve
Agriculture coop carrying out social farming activities. Involvement and training of vulnerable individuals, food waste prevention through the project “ConServe”, and recovery of abandoned land in the peri-urban area of Lucca. Caritas affiliated.
Trajectory
Method
The methodology is twofold: in the food policy case, it has been inspired by the action-research approach used in the HEU project FoodCLIC, combined with additional research through a service-learning exercise involving master students enrolled in the academic course of ‘Wine marketing’ at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Pisa.
Detailed timeline
In progress
