Land as a commons: examples from United Kingdom and Italy

In dealing with land as a commons for a commons-based food system, this chapter focuses on contemporary forms of mobilization that applies the paradigm of the commons to land and soil as key components in the creation of an ecological and democratic food system. We start constructing a framework which acknowledges this diverse field of action, from the regimeoriented (or ‘dominant’), through the reformist, to the most radical of proponents. Secondly, we engage with some examples that we know best to present the reality on the ground in the United Kingdom and in Italy. Those examples combine the struggles for land as a commons with some of the most important struggles for democratic, just and ecological food systems. As we discuss, civil-society-led processes may thus provide important connective tissue between the radical outliers of food commoning and broad-based support for food systems which nourish the collective, rather than enriching the few. The pattern of commoning is long, but it has to begin from the very beginning: with land and soil.