Agricoltura, questione agraria e filiere agroalimentari: vecchi e nuovi sguardi alla luce della sociologia

Food supply chains have faced many transformations in the past decades, despite a weak interest of sociological studies on the one hand and a low impact on public opinion on the other. In recent years, however, the debate in the Italian social sciences presents many elements of considerable originality, connected with the international literature in the analysis of the global dynamics of the distribution of value and bringing to light the intensification of local processes of exploitation of workers and theenvironment. Through a detailed review of the main international theoretical contributions and of the most recent researches carried out in Italy on the agri-food chains and their local reconfiguration, the paper contributes to the framing of relationship between local agriculture and global agri-food chains in the Italian case. The aimis to highlight the tension between the pressures exerted in agri-food system and the processes of ecological transition underway which stimulate a rethinking of the forms of economic, environmental and social sustainability.