Abstract
Agriculture plays a key role in managing the peri-urban landscapes in Europe, influencing their social, aesthetic and environmental functions. Considering the increase in urban population and land consumption in the last decades, sustainability in peri-urban areas is a priority. Farming multifunctionality is the integration of different functions and activities that produce beneficial effects on local economy, environment and society. Three research questions were explored: How is multifunctionality applied in peri-urban agroecosystems? How do we ensure sustainability in peri-urban agroecosystem? How could a bottom-up approach promote sustainable actions, strategies and policies? The Chieri Municipality (Turin Metropolitan Area, Italy) was chosen as representative case study. A trans-scalar approach from the farm to the municipality levels was adopted. The analysis of statistical data and farmers’ interviews were performed. Multifunctionality for three main farm categories (crops and grasslands; vineyards and orchards; and horticulture) was explored using the following parameters: website presence, online selling, agritourism, didactic farms, nonagricultural activities, maintenance parks and gardens, renewable energy, and transformation. According to the different farm types, multifunctionality assumes different aspects covering specific sets of sustainability needs. We consider important to move from the farm level multifunctionality to the landscape level multifunctionality in order to provide all services at a territorial scale. As a result, the following perspectives and strategies were proposed: increasing rural farm networks and cooperation, promoting initiates for valorizing the local food products, including farms in touristic and cultural networks, and involving farmers in social and didactic programs. In conclusion, this methodology could be applied for decision makers and planners for implementing a participatory approach in environmental-social and economic programs for peri-urban areas.
Highlights
In recent decades, urban expansion has caused a great impact on the consumption of land and agricultural resources [1,2,3,4]
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the concepts of multifunctionality and sustainability relative to peri-urban farming preservation; the evaluation is extended to the case study in the Turin metropolitan area (Italy)
The analysis of the According to Duvernoy et al (2018), discontinuous urbanization has recently transformed peri-agricultural areas into mixed spaces characterized by landscape fragmentation [33]
Summary
Urban expansion has caused a great impact on the consumption of land and agricultural resources [1,2,3,4]. Maintaining agricultural landscape’s sustainability in peri-urban areas is a priority and a challenge, because it represents a major part of the cultural landscape in urbanized areas [7,8] In this context, agriculture plays a key role in the landscape management by influencing the social, aesthetic and environmental functions of the urban metropolitan areas and supplies different services. For the sustainable development of peri-urban agroecosystem, it is essential to find a methodology able to conjugate cultural, environmental and ecological values with economic and social needs [11] In this context, according to Casini et al (2012) developing models that integrate traditional and historical farming processes with nonmarket goods and services’ evaluation is a priority challenge [12]. O’Farrell and Anderson expressed the need to translate the theoretical role of ecosystem services for guiding multifunctional landscapes in urban and agricultural systems [13]
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