The publications presented in this special issue of the journal rural economy are the result of research projects funded under the PSDR4 program (For and On Regional Development). The objective of the PSDR program (since extended within the framework of the TETRAE program “Transition in Territories of Agriculture, Food and the Environment”) was to promote research in partnership within the framework of calls for joint projects. supported by INRAE and the regional councils. More specifically, the aim was to “contribute to regional and territorial development through research and development operations carried out in partnership with local actors”1. The purpose of this note is to briefly recall the context of this research program and, in particular, the inter-project coordination work that was carried out within the framework of a transversal group “Rural-urban link” .
The vocation of a cross-functional group is to promote cross-knowledge and capitalization between the results of projects that are all rooted in a regional territory. The transversal group “Rural-urban link” has made it possible to organize exchanges between around ten projects in the region2. Its aim was to work collectively on the research results carried by the projects on the forms of collective action and public action which question and renew the relations between rural and urban territories. In particular, innovations in territorial governance were debated in this context around a few central questions, such as the analysis of new methods of interconnection between territories and the forms of coordination between actors. These questions were investigated by discussing key concepts mobilized in research and found in the publications of this special file, such as those of interfaces and solidarity between territories.
The confrontation of projects has made it possible in particular to identify territorial innovations which have gradually been put on the agenda of local land policies, which constitute the common thread of this special dossier ofRural economy. These include practices in terms of local support for installation, mechanisms for preserving peri-urban agricultural land or even instruments to facilitate the diversification of agricultural production and activities with a view to multifunctionality. By way of example, we can mention the work on land portage practices for installation in short circuits or the requalification of agricultural buildings to support diversification projects towards activities in the extension of the act of production (processing, agritourism, marketing). Finally, in terms of expertise relating to agricultural development, the transversal group was a place for discussing methodological instruments to assess the sustainability of agricultural land structures (production of indicators of land tenure fragility of transmissions, as a ‘example).
The transversal group has also taken up work that questions the links between land and food policies. These issues are salient in local territory projects, which confront land and food planning, in a context where the expectations of communities in terms of local supply and reconnection between the agricultural and urban worlds are high. Territorial strategies for the relocation of the food supply are indeed reformulating the agenda of land policies, by mobilizing all the actors concerned (agricultural organizations, associative support). These initiatives give rise to original coalitions between the various players in the agri-food system.
Beyond the renovation of the territorial planning framework, many land action tools were discussed in the context of exchanges between projects. We are indeed witnessing a revival of various mechanisms that challenge the actors of land tenure systems. These may be regulatory tools, such as the renewed structure control framework since its regionalization, which allows the integration of environmental and social imperatives and whose local application has given rise to in-depth research. It can also be contractual tools, such as the development of environmental rural leases or real environmental obligations, which promote the involvement of landowners in the implementation of environmental objectives.
Insofar as the transversal group set itself the objective of investigating questions relating to the new relations between urban and rural areas, the interface and fringe spaces provided a particularly fertile observation point for thinking regarding these interconnections. We thus discussed the research carried out on the dual contribution of cultivated areas of urban/rural interfaces to food production and biodiversity. Indeed, the work carried out both in the field of urban ecology and planning and geography has shown the role played by these heterogeneous spaces that are the interfaces between urban and rural and have revalorized the environmental interest of the territories in low density. Thus, peri-urban farms and collective gardens in suburban areas provide an important contribution to cultivated and wild biodiversity. The protection of these spaces in the planning documents of local authorities is an increasingly salient issue.
These interface territories are also vectors of innovation in terms of the relocation of the food supply. Indeed, the forms of domestic agriculture in the private space of suburban housing (vegetable gardens) play an essential role whereas their place has long been underestimated. These self-production spaces can participate in a specific food supply for household food and also take on many functions favorable to the well-being of populations. As such, they contribute to the renewal of links between urban and rural territories.
We have emphasized here the work of the cross-functional group that is most in line with the theme of this special dossier. However, the research discussed within the framework of this inter-project group also put into perspective other facets of the rural-urban link, such as the analysis of the well-being and the attractiveness of the territories, envisaged by the research as much from the angle of objective indicators (such as inequalities of access to services, institutions or sociability networks) than by the analysis of subjective social representations.
In summary, the “Rural-urban link” group tackled a variety of themes echoed in the contributions to this special dossier. Responding to the challenges of social innovation, territorial inequalities and the renewal of local public action was at the heart of discussions between projects. Questioning the link between urban and rural indeed requires understanding the behavior of farmers and landowners, explaining the local choices made by communities and highlighting market logic. It was thus a question of proposing, through research in partnership, a systemic vision of the contemporary challenges posed by the reterritorialisation of agriculture and regional development.
