The Direct Contribution of Research to Modifying Spatial Patterns of Local Development : Action Research to Reduce Vulnerabilities and Re‐Build Agricultural Activity in Urban and Periurban Areas of Montreal and Paris

En collaboration avec Ghalia Chahine et Ève Saymard (Université de Montréal), Monique Poulot et Jean‐Paul Charvet (Université de Paris X), André Fleury et Roland Vidal (École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles) et Salma Loudiyi (ENGREF, Clermont‐Ferrand).

Résumé de la conférence :
Research into the spatial structure and dynamics of agricultural areas in the urban fringes, or periurban areas, of major cities and metropolis has a history of at least 60 years in North America. In Europe, while the interest in the subject dates from before the Second World War in the UK and includes the significant action undertaken in the Netherlands to protect farmland in metropolitan regions since the mid‐20th Century, overall interest in periurban agricultural structures and transformations is much more recent, dating from the 1970s for the most part. Much of the West European interest was not so much about agriculture per se, but rather about the contribution of agricultural space to planning and managing the structure of urban and metropolitan regions. This became more and more central as the notion of the multi‐functionality of agricultural (and rural) space near urban areas became a major preoccupation. Towards the latter part of the 1990s, this same preoccupation has become more pronounced in Canada as well, particularly in Quebec but also in Ontario. Faced with the observation of the vulnerability of many agricultural spaces in urban and periurban areas, even where there are farmland protection programs in place of one kind or another, it has become increasingly obvious that maintaining dynamic agricultural spaces in these areas requires intervention at the local level to help (but not necessarily via financial means) farming adapt to the circumstances and contribute to the quality of life of urban residents. Starting with these observations, this paper recounts the unfolding results of a multi‐disciplinary research project that has adopted an action research approach, aimed at helping local and regional actors, including farmers, use strategic thinking to diagnose, plan for and identify projects that can allow farmers in these spaces to ensure the financial and economic viability of the farming operations while at the same time contributing to the support of multiple functions of a collective nature that can be appropriated by non agricultural players and simultaneously reinforcing the financial and economic viability of the farms involved. The paper reports on the process involved in several periurban areas close to the Montreal agglomeration and the initial steps in the same direction in the Paris region, France.

Pour lire le texte intégral de la conférence (pp. 67-78).