Understanding UPAs development, a statistical analysis based on French recent data

Despite a growing interest for the development of urban and periurban agriculture (UPA), little is known on the characterization of these particular systems. On the one hand the urban spread around cities radically modifies the shape and the landscape of the territories under urban influence. On the other hand the citizens’ demands in terms of food procurement and agricultural amenities call for more relational proximities between urban consumers and vegetable or meat providers (Purple 2010; Terres en Ville, 2009). Based on recent data available for France regions concerning the localization of agricultural stakeholders (agricultural census and others), this paper aims to describe the types and the evolutions of the various forms of agricultural systems inside and around the city using a diachronic analysis of the farmers demography. For an understanding of the town incidences, we use the typology of the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) to segment the French communes into areas under different gradients of urban influence (ZAUER 2010).