Urban agriculture as a tool for a sustainable development of the city of Messina

Indeed, urban agriculture becomes a model in favour of both representative and participatory democracy. Therefore, the research objective pursues two different aims. The first one is to understand how it is possible to modify urban and rural landscape through the decisions made by serveral stakeholders, including different private and public agents, such as land managers, opinion makers, trasformation processes users, technicians, decision makers, etc. The second one is to identify how productive green spaces may contribute to the economic development of the city and to the creation of a social area of environmental wellbeing. The research approach and the methology used in this work consist in applying the analysis of the urban agriculture model, by involving the local actors who represent the Local Support Group. This methodology is based on the use of the local action plans aimed at achieving a double result, that is to say, environmental protection and promotion of the local territory, through an economic growth of the places surveyed. In this regard, this work has analyzed the strategy developed by a government, in particular, the city of Messina, which by enhancing urban and peri-urban agriculture, aims to achieve sustainable economic development of the entire territory.