Emmanuelle Ducros 8:56 a.m., January 31, 2024
Every morning after the 8:30 a.m. news, Emmanuelle Ducros reveals to listeners her “Journey into absurdity”, from Monday to Thursday.
Farmers surround Paris, which does not mean that the city is blockaded and its food supplies compromised. But now the fantasy of short circuits and urban agriculture has resurfaced.
This is a post from Libération, entitled “Starving Paris in three days of blockade? Not with short circuits” which made me want to talk about this subject this morning. Sometimes, it is good to put back a few orders of magnitude in reasonings as above ground as a tomato grown in aquaponics.
The post began with an exact observation: Paris, 2.1 million inhabitants within its walls, displays an extremely low rate of self-sufficiency, that is to say of food found in the city and the peri-urban area: 1.27%. We have to do better so as not to be stuck.
Can we do better?
The author of the post is confident! 11,000 hectares of agricultural land are enough to feed the Parisian population with fruits and vegetables. “The walk doesn't seem that high, it's the surface of the town,” he explains. There, things start to get a little tricky. Because if Paris does not produce its fruits and vegetables, it is precisely because we are not going to raze it to make a garden. And then, we don't just eat vegetables. Cereals make up a quarter of our calorie intake. Wheat doesn't grow well in a flower pot.
Paris is still a pioneer city in urban agriculture.
The largest urban farm in Europe is in Paris, on the roof of the Porte de Versailles exhibition center, where tomatoes and strawberries are grown on a stunning surface area of half a hectare, or two thirds of a plot of land. football, Fortunately we don't count on it too much to fill the plates.
The city of Paris has 250 hectares of good land on its outskirts, which it wants to cultivate for its subsistence.
Can the city achieve a certain autonomy with this?
One hectare of agricultural land produces the equivalent of 25,000 baguettes over a year, or 3,850 kilos of pasta. Little rule of three. By using 250 hectares, we can offer three baguettes per year to each Parisian or 500 grams of pasta. It's light. Paris consumes 1.3 million eggs per day. We will have to build a bunch of balcony chicken coops.
Should we abandon this idea of short circuits?
Certainly not. But keeping your eyes in front of the holes. Paris is located in the middle of one of the most fertile agricultural areas in Europe. Vegetable production abounds there. Livestock breeding is present. The first cereal fields are less than 10km from the ring road. If tractors can so easily surround the city, it is not by miracle. They are right next door.
This fantasy of urban agriculture says one thing: Paris and some of its inhabitants do not look around them. They fantasize about gardening as the ultimate form of agriculture. And they have a little superiority complex thinking that they are doing better than the professionals with an annual harvest of cherry tomatoes from balcony boxes.