Sustainability of urban and peri-urban agriculture: public policies and innovations

Bibliographic work has been done in the resarch field, both in theory and in relation to the Swiss context. Field investigations have been conducted in Geneva as well as in the agglomeration of Lausanne-Morges, with farmers, elected officials and professionals of territorial and agricultural development.
These data helped developping an analysis framework of urban agriculture, between private management and public policy: which components of public policies are affecting agriculture in urban areas? What are the business models of urban agricultural activities? which innovations are being implemented? Economics is seen here in the broad sense of the principles, practices and economic tools that are contributing to the integration of agriculture in the development of urban areas over time. This approach is completed by contributions of political science and operational knowledge of the organization, as well as sociological approach of individual and family trajectories. A central concept of the project is the concept of "green heritage" of the city in the sense of productive green spaces. The research topics, which are also related to working scales, are:
1 - Profiles of Geneva farmers: life paths, representations and innovations. Work in Geneva with J.Salomon Cavin.
2- From agrarian heritage to sustainable urban development: forests, fields and vineyards, the green heritage of the city of Lausanne. Research on the agrarian estates of the City of Lausanne: historical building of an agrarian heritage, policy management and governance, economics and organization, innovations.
3- Agricultural Planning in the North Lausanne area: studying the implementation of a new planning tool and its impacts on how agriculture is taken into account in the urban project. Following our previous work on land planning in France, comparison with Switzerland brings interesting matter. In connection with L.Andriotis.