The broken bond: unveiling the contribution of farmers in planning the transition spaces

This chapter aims at investigating the problems and challenges of the urban/rural interface by looking at a specific case-study area, the Metropolitan City of Turin, in Northern Italy, and focusing on the perspectives of farmers owning and/or working in periurban agricultural areas. It employs a mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology made of two surveys. The first one analyses the plans and planning documents at municipal and metropolitan level to understand how planning policies treat agricultural areas and frame them within a perspective of stronger urban/rural relationships and more sustainable food systems. The second survey is based on semi-structured interviews addressed to periurban farmers aimed at assessing their ability and willingness to undertake processes of transformation of their agricultural enterprises by introducing multifunctional practices.