Research and action to advance small-scale farmers' participation to an urban food policy: a bridging research practice experience in Montpellier, France

International audienceIn France, farmers have become a minority in an urbanizing society. They are increasingly isolated and their organizations are divided into various models (Hervieu & Purseigle, 2008). Paradoxically, this profession is criticized and solicited at the same time. Moreover, cities tend to engage in new agricultural policies. In this context, the participation of farmers to such policies is an issue. In 2015, in Montpellier, the city council decided to engage in local initiatives to settle small-scale agroecological farmers in order to use vacant periurban land. This policy has promoted farmers’ active engagement, but without real knowledge of leading appropriate procedures (Tornaghi, 2012). That’s why the institution funded a PhD thesis dealing with the farmers` participation in the policy, expecting an expertise on agricultural development. As a response, an on-going process of action-research has been launched. It deals with two topics. Firstly, a major farmland organization had previously managed the vacant periurban plots. New rules were established in order to identify agricultural projects able to meet the expectations of city dwellers and to offer farmers good conditions of work. Secondly, the agricultural component of the land use plan used to be out-sourced. It is now being carried out in-house, in partnership with local agricultural and peasants’ organizations. The presentation will introduce the new learning and working procedures generated by this on-going action-research. It will show how it has contributed to change the capacity of the city council to conduct an agricultural policy, but also to deal with a socio-geo-agronomical research