Abstract
In the cities of industrialized countries, the sudden keen interest in urban agriculture has resulted, inter alia, in the growth of the number and diversity of urban collective gardens. While the multifunctionality of collective gardens is well known, individual gardeners’ motivations have still not been thoroughly investigated. The aim of this article is to explore the role, for the gardeners, of the food function as one of the functions of gardens, and to establish whether and how this function is a motivating factor for them. We draw on a set of data from semi-structured interviews with 39 gardeners in 12 collective gardens in Paris and Montreal, as well as from a survey on 98 gardeners and from field observations of the gardeners’ practices. In the first part we present the nature and diversity of garden produce, and the gardeners’ assessment thereof. In the second part we describe the seven other functions mentioned by the gardeners, which enables us to situate the food function in relation to them. We conclude that the food function is the most significant function of the gardens, and discuss the implications for practitioners and policy makers.
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Notes
Collective gardens include cultivated spaces managed collectively by groups of gardeners, most often for food-production purposes and for gardener’s own consumption, located at a distant place from gardener’s home. They include both historical forms of gardens, whose origins go back in the late 19th century, for example French jardins familiaux (family gardens), allotment plots in the UK or the jardins communautaires (community gardens) in Quebec, and more recent forms of urban gardening such as the jardins partagés (shared gardens) in France. As we witness the fact that a same expression can refer, from one country to another and even within a same country, to a diversity of designs, settings and statuses, we will use the expression “collective gardens” to avoid ambiguity that may arise from using a word already used in a specific context.
In order to do so, we did not use interview analysis software such as NVivo or Sonal, as the number of interviews was small enough to be treated manually and not to justify the use of such software.
Breeding small animals is tolerated in certain jardins partagés in Paris, as the municipality's position on this subject is extremely vague. It is however prohibited in most jardins familiaux in the suburbs and in the jardins communautaires of Montreal. In Montreal the Collectif de Recherche en Agriculture Urbaine et Aménagement Paysager Durable (CRAPAUD) launched the initiave Ma poule à Montreal (“my chicken in Montreal”) in 2010, to apply for authorization to have laying hens in the city. The practice has nevertheless remained illegal, except in one district.
Contrary to what has been found in other studies, such as that of J. Barrault, who showed that, in the context of private gardens, French gardeners are heavy consumers of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (Barrault 2009).
The extended family is comprised of members of the family not living under the same roof as the gardener.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Anne-Cécile Daniel, Sophie Le Paul, Juliette Jego and Fred Rochon for helping conduct surveys with gardeners. Thanks to Genevieve Metson and Evelyne Boissonneault for helping distributing the questionnaire to gardeners. Many thanks to all Parisian and Montreal gardeners who spent time answering our questions and completing our booklets. This research was carried out in the framework of a doctoral thesis funded by the DIM ASTREA, a research program of the Ile-de-France Region.
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Pourias, J., Aubry, C. & Duchemin, E. Is food a motivation for urban gardeners? Multifunctionality and the relative importance of the food function in urban collective gardens of Paris and Montreal. Agric Hum Values 33, 257–273 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9606-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9606-y