Pictures from the other side of the fringe: Urban growth and peri-urban agriculture in a post-industrial city (Toulouse, France)

Peri-urban agriculture has preserved around central cities a land-use mosaic and contributes to the sustainable growth of metropolitan regions constituting green infrastructures, supplying urban markets, and improving social inclusion. The present study provides a quali-quantitative overview of peri-urban agriculture vis à vis urban expansion investigating the recent evolution of peri-urban farms (1988-2010) in Toulouse, the fourth largest metropolitan region in France. Socioeconomic dynamics in the study area, are representative of latent spatial and functional relationships between urban growth and peri-urban agriculture in contemporary European cities. Two complementary approaches were developed (i) identifying and analysing socioeconomic and environmental indicators that characterize changes over time in peri-urban agriculture by linking urban expansion with the evolution of fringe land-use; and (ii) carrying out a qualitative survey on a sample of farmers with the aim to relate farms' evolution strategies and land-use dynamics. Results of the present study indicate that urban expansion affects the characteristics of peri-urban farms, altering economic size, crop productions and social characteristics of farmers, and widening the spatial divide between large enterprises located in the peri-urban periphery and smaller farms in the immediate surroundings of urban areas. The qualitative survey investigates farmers' strategies to maintain their business in peri-urban areas. By recognizing that structural and functional characteristics of urban growth are interpretative keys to identify sustainable land management strategies, the role of peri-urban agriculture is finally outlined according to the empirical evidence from different socioeconomic contexts in the study area.