Greening the City

Farming at the city’s edge

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You have to feel sorry for farmers. As cities continue to encroach on their land, their job is becoming increasingly difficult, especially due to the presence of busy main roads which are difficult to use with tractors and farm machinery. And yet urban agriculture has not been recognized as ‘disadvantaged agriculture’ within the framework of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. “The question is not only to find out how to keep farming alive near urban centers, but also to choose the agriculture that is best adapted to this specific context,” points out Pierre Donadieu, Professor at the Versailles National School of Landscape Architecture, who in France was one of the pioneers of new thinking on the subject. “For instance, near Paris, the cereal crops of the region are almost entirely grown for export. They consume large quantities of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and do little to help maintain biodiversity. Their role as an amenity for the region’s population is also limited. Organic farming, combining animal husbandry, orchards, nurseries and market gardening, and selling products locally, would be better adapted to public demand.”
To make city life and agriculture more compatible, some European urban regions have set up farming areas in which property speculation is discouraged, or at any rate strictly regulated. For instance, the South Milan Agricultural Park (Italy), set up in 1983, is equipped with cycle paths which link this rice-growing region to the city center. Farmers have started to offer services to the public, such as farmers’ markets and farmhouse catering. Near Barcelona Airport, in Spain, the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park also aims to protect its heritage of orchards and market gardens, and make them better known to the general public. Set up in 1998, it covers an area of around 3000 hectares. It includes several hundred small farmers organized in cooperatives who sell part of their products not only in the Barcelona area but also in the rest of Spain and throughout Europe.