How can farming contribute to the sustainability of local food systems? The interplay of embedding and entrepreneuring

My research project would add to the literature in rural studies by seeking to offer insights of the role that small farmers can play in achieving sustainable food systems locally, while practicing rural entrepreneurship and enacting rural embeddedness. To this aim, in line with an in-depth and pertinent analysis of the existing literature of embeddedness and entrepreneurship in rural studies, I take into consideration two Italian case studies, one from Tuscany region, Lucca area, and another one from Puglia region, Cerignola area. I seek to explore whether and how embedding, meant as an ongoing practice of embeddedness, can contribute to make small farmers in the interested regions get to be rural entrepreneurs. At the same time, we seek to understand how small farmers in these environments can enact entrepreneuring to build and foster an embeddedness process within their territory. The interplay between embeddedeness and entrepreneurship as dynamic processes is the core of my research work. A qualitative data collection strategy has been adopted in order to gather information and perception from a range of local farmers, key informants and key stakeholders (e.g. policy makers, food business operators) through semi-structured interviews, focus groups and field visits. Afterwards, a systematic approach to a grounded theory articulation and concept development allowed me to bring qualitative rigor to the conduct and presentation of my inductive research.