This book presents the contribution of cultural heritage as a tool for the valorization of urban agriculture, assumed in the wide sense of urban farming and urban food gardening, and considered important to improve life quality and landscape.   It cuts across the existing literature and fills the gaps between urban agriculture, considered as a food, social and environmental opportunity and cultural heritage, considered as widespread tangible and intangible values and resource. It focuses on the quality for all areas, both outstanding, ordinary or degraded, as well as large, little or fragmented (European landscape convention 2000). Agricultural landscape is a system of tangible and intangible heritage components and relationships. The concept of dynamic conservation is crucial as a process of looking after the landscape to retain, enhance and transmit its cultural significance and, at the same time, allowing  and guiding its inevitable transformations (ICOMOS-IFLA Principles 2017). Agricultural landscape can become a driving force for many opportunities. Collaboration between local players – such as farmers, citizens, local associations, public institutions, stakeholders – can reinforce collective action and generate positive effects on good large-scale management. Conservation and enhancement of agrarian heritage help to reinforce the identity of places and urban communities. It brings to mind the role of the countryside and its connection with urban areas, in the history of the city, particularly in metropolitan areas where rapid and deep transformations produce many social and cultural problems. Conservation and enhancement of urban-agricultural landscape should occur through a process of co-construction among farmers, citizens and policy makers.  With this in mind, the book is divided into three parts. The First Part has a methodological character in order to enlighten the integrated approach between cultural heritage and urban agriculture. The Second Part exemplifies cases where the recognition of the importance of heritage occurred but has not yet translated into concrete action.  The Third Part discloses cases in which a process of co-construction has been initiated or has been going on for years: here policies have recognized the cultural, environmental and social meaning of urban agriculture and heritage. In addition to this, many other transversal research lines can be found in the book’s contributions.This book involves many authors and most of them are scholars and researchers directly involved with action-research in safeguarding and implementing the mutual interaction between urban agriculture activities and agrarian heritage. It aims to reach scholars, local administrations, professionals and farmers, to reveal and valorise agrarian heritage as a resource. weiterlesen