Reassessing the Importance of Agriculture in the Greater Paris Project

ACLNational audienceIn this article, our viewpoint is to consider the development of the Paris Region from the small importance given to agricultural areas around the city. In the first part, we study the official urban planning documents. The place of agriculture in these documents, remains marginal ; it seems to be important only for the inhabitants living just around the agricultural areas. The second part shows our analysis of more than six hundred interviews made in several agricultural areas. It appears that the attachment of inhabitants to the open agricultural areas is considerably underestimated. This attachment to agricultural areas is not, in our view, a NIMBY reflex because the fight against urbanization is not the main raison to defend agriculture : the question of a balanced development of the Paris Region is always raised. We cannot say only that these agricultural areas are "useful" for biodiversity, landscape or local supplies. These areas are sources of identity ; they help people to know who they are, individually and collectively. They are good places for stakeholders to build common projects, to find new synergies and think differently about a sustainable development of the Paris Region