Governing the coexistence of agricultural models: French cities allocating farmlands to support agroecology and short food chains on urban fringes

Abstract

This paper deals with the coexistence of agricultural models from the perspective of land management on the urban fringe. Our goal is to show how urban local authorities deal with and influence the coexistence of models when they are involved in farmland management, and more specifically when they determine which farmer should be allocated what land and under which lease agreement. To do this, we compare public processes of farmland allocation led by French local authorities on the urban fringes of Lyon, Montpellier, and Perpignan. This geographic study is based on qualitative methods (observations, interviews, and document analysis). The comparison of seven case studies illustrates the changing balances of power on urban fringes between agricultural models and between urban and agricultural stakeholders. As urban local authorities grant them land and legitimacy, farmers willing to develop agroecology and short food supply chains may settle in peri-urban areas, where access to land is otherwise very difficult for outsiders. Some public allocations of farmland divide space between models following agronomic and esthetic criteria, but few public bodies venture to hierarchize models by an unequal repartition of land property rights. Beyond their limited spatial impact, public allocations of farmland are actually important local initiatives for the institutional recognition of sustainable agriculture models, one driver within urban policies aiming at supporting a transition towards agroecology and more sustainable food systems. Governance processes could, however, be improved if local authorities would more explicitly tackle the possible issues related to the coexistence of diverse agricultural models in space, as in public debates and policies.

Promoting Rural Regeneration and Sustainable Farming near Cities Thanks to Facilitating Operators in France? The Case of the Versailles Plain’s Association Governance Model

“…The market gardener wanted to buy two hectares in the municipality and had gone to the town hall for support and to make himself known to the population (he wanted to sell directly from the farm and was looking to contact potential customers). However, in France, the SAFER has legal control over farmland selling [73], and it gave a negative opinion to the market gardener project. This position was caused by the viability of the traditional economic system of the Versailles plain, where most farmers are usually cereal farmers and not market gardeners.…”

Achieving Food System Resilience Requires Challenging Dominant Land Property Regimes

“…to hold over 6,400 ha of land (225 farms) in a quasi-common trust for ecologically sustainable agricultural use. Urban local authorities also rent public land to new-entrant farmers willing to develop agroecology and short food supply chains in periurban areas, where access to land is otherwise very difficult for those with non-farming backgrounds (Perrin and Baysse-Lainé, 2020). Such alternative land-tenure systems contribute to debates surrounding the pending land law reformulation and the possible impacts of property relations and land governance mechanisms on food system transition (Baysse-Lain and Perrin, 2018).…”

Farmers’ land strategies in peri-urban areas: the case of Angevin conurbation

“…However, French law on land use planning changed significantly in 2000, assigning the role of designing and leading genuine intersectoral policies for land development, including the issues of environmental preservation, economic development, spatial organization of land use, and structuring of local food chains, to enlarged urban intermunicipalities (Bertrand 2013). At the same time, in peri-urban contexts, local authorities are an important player in the agricultural land market because of their urban planning policies and sometimes their land acquisitions (Perrin and Baysse-Laine 2020). Even though farmers are demographically a very small minority in these areas and have little institutional presence as elected representatives of local authorities, they are at the heart of a necessary dialogue on the future of their activity and the areas they exploit.…”

“…In the recent period, this evolution of farmers' conceptions of their relationship to land is articulated with the emergence of mobilization scenes in which the challenges of maintaining agricultural land use are debated. Coline Perrin and Adrien Baysse-Lainé have shown how the definition and implementation of local government land policies can promote or disqualify farmers' land strategies (Perrin and Baysse-Laine 2020). Beyond these instituted scenes, we can identify three types of social scenes that produce judgments on land strategies: peer discussions, moments of openness to other social groups, and moments of institutional work.…”

“…The first level is inter-communality, where rules relating to the preservation of agricultural land and the allocation of land to farmers are negotiated between local authorities and farming professionals. Within the framework of these scenes, the parties involved promote certain relationships to land, certain strategies that are translated into practice in local arrangements (Perrin and Baysse-Laine 2020). The handling of more local, often communal matters is our second level of observation and analysis: urban planning projects generate controversy and mobilization that involve farmers as well as inhabitants and elected municipal officials (we will present here the case of the development of a ring road south of the city of Angers).…”