title: Organic market gardening around the Paris agglomeration: agro-environmental performance and capacity to meet urban requirements.
abstract: Organic market gardening is often promoted by urban municipalities as a way to resource part of the food supply, creating new social links and protecting groundwater resources. The agronomical and environmental performance of six commercial organic market gardening farms supplying vegetables in Paris were evaluated and compared with other vegetable production systems. When expressed in terms of protein production, the yield of these systems appears rather low compared with the productive capacity of open-field organic cropping systems where vegetable production is inserted into rotation with other crops. Moreover, the requirement of producing infiltrated water meeting the drinking water standards seriously limits the allowable rate of fertilisation, thus limiting production. The data reported herein show that to supply the amount of vegetables required by the Paris agglomeration (12 million inhabitants) only by organic market gardening, 160,000-205,000 ha, i.e. 28-36 % of the agricultural area of the surrounding Ile-de-France region, would be required. We conclude that organic market gardening is only one of several other farming systems which can contribute to a re-localised supply of vegetables to large cities.
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), UMR Metis, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France. juliettealice.anglade@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Juliette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Anglade
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), UMR Metis, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Michael Ramos
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Medina
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), UMR Metis, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.|Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), UMR Metis, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Billen
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), UMR Metis, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.|Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), UMR Metis, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Josette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Garnier
mesh_terms: D057914:Agricultural Irrigation; D000072480:Farms / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005523:Food Supply / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005602:France; D058871:Organic Agriculture / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010297:Paris; D014675:Vegetables
keywords: City; Food; Market gardening; Nitrates; Nitrogen; Organic; Vegetable; Water