This text brings together insights shared during the session Resilient Territorial Planning, animated by Guillaume Morel-Chevillet. The contributions of diverse experts—Vergers Urbains, Inga Kardava, Agnès Patuano, Laurent Hodebert, Axel Thierry, Agnès Fargue-Lelièvre, and Olivier Parisis—offer a rich panorama of how urban agriculture is shaping resilient futures. Their work spans grassroots initiatives, institutional programs, spatial design, pedagogical innovation, and policy frameworks, illustrating the multifaceted role of food production in rethinking cities, communities, and education for resilience.

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In the face of climatic, social, and economic upheavals, the resilience of our cities increasingly depends on their ability to reimagine how we produce, inhabit, and share space. Urban agriculture has emerged not only as a means to green our environments, but as a practice rooted in reclaiming the commons, fostering community agency, and reshaping educational paradigms. Across France, Belgium, and Europe, a multitude of actors—from grassroots associations to public agencies and academic institutions—demonstrate how cultivating the city also cultivates its resilience.

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The association Vergers Urbains offers a compelling illustration of how urban agriculture can reinvent public space and civic engagement. For more than a decade, this Paris-based initiative has been reclaiming interstitial and neglected spaces, transforming them into vibrant gardens. Positioned between market and state, their work embodies a “third way,” where urban commons are co-created through collective action and shared stewardship. These gardens are not just about food—they reveal the power of citizen engagement, bridge cultural divides, and foster connections between people and their environment.

 

This vision resonates with the work of Inga Kardava on the French National Agency for Urban Renovation (ANRU) and its Quartiers Fertiles program. Targeting neighborhoods in need of revitalization (quartiers prioritaires), ANRU supports the development of productive agriculture as a driver of ecological, economic, and social regeneration. These initiatives create jobs while embedding food production within broader urban renewal strategies. Residents are empowered to reshape their living environments, supported by robust institutional frameworks. Here, urban agriculture becomes a vehicle for dignity, justice, and structural transformation.

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While policies and grassroots energy set the stage, spatial design itself plays a critical role. Agnès Patuano, landscape architect and researcher at Wageningen University, reminds us that design influences behavior, well-being, and social cohesion. Her teaching explores how food-producing landscapes in cities can restore attention, promote healthy routines, and create spaces of care. Greening, in this sense, is not just aesthetic—it is therapeutic, empowering, and socially generative.

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On the urban periphery, Laurent Hodebert investigates the Mediterranean fringes where city and countryside blur. These overlooked zones become experimental grounds for redefining the rural-urban continuum. Inspired by Sébastien Marot’s Negotiation scenario, his work invites us to view agriculture not as a remnant to preserve, but as a cornerstone of resilient urban planning—a productive space from which to rethink urbanity itself.

 

Such paradigmatic shifts are also central to Axel Thierry’s teaching. Working with students in architecture, planning, and geography, he invites them to see food as a core urban issue. Through field-based methods such as landscape transects and stakeholder interviews, students engage deeply with agro-urban interfaces. His pedagogical framework—agroecological urbanism—repositions agriculture as a structuring element in the design of future cities, rather than an afterthought.

 

Likewise, Agnès Fargue-Lelièvre draws on over a decade of experience teaching urban agriculture at AgroParisTech. While initial enthusiasm was high, recent declines in student enrollment have prompted reflection on how to sustain and evolve these programs. Nonetheless, many graduates have gone on to careers in public service, consulting, farming, and research—often bridging urban and rural spheres. The program’s strength lies in its integrative nature, combining GIS, pest management, urban forestry, and real-world engineering challenges. Its trajectory reveals both the promise and fragility of embedding urban agriculture in higher education.

 

This challenge is also taken up at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, where urban agriculture is taught as a pillar of sustainable transition. Olivier Parisis emphasizes that with 70% of the global population projected to live in cities by 2050, food systems must be fundamentally rethought. Circular economies, alternative production methods, and the reintegration of agriculture into urban infrastructure are all essential. Urban planning, he argues, must be reoriented toward the citizen, designing neighborhoods where nature, food, and social life are interwoven.

 

In this spirit, the urban agriculture courses at Gembloux combine theory and practice. Students explore a range of production systems—from soil-based to soilless—and engage with real-world projects alongside local stakeholders. New pedagogical tools support them in evaluating sustainability and exercising critical thinking. The goal is not only to transmit technical knowledge, but to cultivate a mindset—one in which food is central to ecological transitions, and education becomes a lever for resilience and innovation.

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