A spatial perspective on food transition in diffused settlements. Lessons from the Veneto region

The agro-food literature increasingly adopts transitions approaches in order to conceptualize the emergence and scaling out of alternative food initiatives. These approaches through time have given greater importance to the socio-political context and the multi-level institutional apparatus in which alternative food initiatives develop. Scarce attention, however, is given to the role of space and place in the agency of alternative food initiatives. Taking the Veneto ´diffused settlements´ as a case study, this short article briefly illustrates how spatialgeographical assets and flows - such as quality agricultural land, water and soil resources, mobility systems, alternative and conventional food infrastructures - have played a substantial role in influencing the development of conventional and alternative food networks in the Veneto Region. Based on the empirical findings, this article provides first directions for embedding a spatial/geographical consideration in the analysis of food system transitions. These directions relate to: a) the analysis of characters, access, uses of key material resources, b) attention to distance-proximity relations favoured by mobility systems; c) the role of territorial actors (planning/territorial administrations, conventional or alternative food clusters); d) the spatial organization of alternative and conventional food networks into self-reliant or, rather, hybrid food systems.