Territorial Contradictions of Intensive Agriculture: The Incompatibility Between Modern Agriculture and the Construction of a Sustainable Landscape

Abstract

The paper starts from the necessity of new paradigms for the future of cities and landscape. Circular economy and the connected saving and reuse of resources are fundamental. In this sense, it is necessary to introduce some of the premodern fundamental features: the resources recycle and the strict connection between urban and rural landscape, which modernity forgot, to pursue the present consumerist model, too simple and linear, and therefore ineffective in relation to the contemporary complexity. Technology, smart city and the related apparatus (agriculture of precision, industry 4.0 etc.) are important, but their goal should not consist in filling the cities with electronic toys, but in taking care of the whole urban environment in a clever way. After discussing these concepts, this paper proposes a more thoughtful approach, aimed at environmental sustainability, through the prevention and treatment of territorial pathologies. In order to cope with these pathologies, it is necessary a theoretical framework based on the concepts of thermodynamics.