Citizens and researchers elaborate a local food democracy in France: POPSU Territoires inTournus
Published on 13 January 2022
France
This is the good practice's implementation level. It can be national, regional or local.
About this good practice
The research project started in 2019 and addresses a specific topic of circular economy: territorial food system. It aims at building a local food system integrating social, ecological, and economic issues. How to provide everyone with access to healthy food? How to develop local production that promotes food self-sufficiency in the area?
The whole process was done by creating a friendly cooperation between researchers and local actors, with the idea of breaking the usual asymmetries between the field of research on the one hand and citizens / elected representatives on the other.
To create a scientific but also actionable knowledge, a participatory action research collective was formed with participatory research workshops led by researchers involving elected representatives, associations, citizens. Researchers also trained audiences of investigators to elaborate a participatory territorial diagnosis and identify concrete actions. Students from the local university are also involved in the project. The students involved had a variety of profiles. A student in agronomy did her master's course on the issue of access to quality food for the population. She conducted three workshops with different groups (engaged citizens, families and a small village community). Social work students conducted interviews with people in precarious situations who use the social grocery shop. Sociology and geography master students carried out a questionnaire on gardening.
The whole process was done by creating a friendly cooperation between researchers and local actors, with the idea of breaking the usual asymmetries between the field of research on the one hand and citizens / elected representatives on the other.
To create a scientific but also actionable knowledge, a participatory action research collective was formed with participatory research workshops led by researchers involving elected representatives, associations, citizens. Researchers also trained audiences of investigators to elaborate a participatory territorial diagnosis and identify concrete actions. Students from the local university are also involved in the project. The students involved had a variety of profiles. A student in agronomy did her master's course on the issue of access to quality food for the population. She conducted three workshops with different groups (engaged citizens, families and a small village community). Social work students conducted interviews with people in precarious situations who use the social grocery shop. Sociology and geography master students carried out a questionnaire on gardening.
Resources needed
Financial and research network support of a state programme called POPSU Territoires including 30 000euro to finance 2 researchers spending 30 % of their time, 1 PhD student which has a coordinating role, an end-of-study internship in agronomy, a collective work of students in agronomy.
Evidence of success
20 pers. involved in choice of survey methods and analysis of results: researchers, students, citizens, associations and elected representatives.
The surveys: access to quality food: 3 focus groups; on gardening: 134; on diagnosis of food system: 45 producers, 9 processors and 25 distributors + 35 interviews with resource persons.Insertion in market gardening + social grocery store: 545 households; consumer cooperative: 50 families; land made available by the town hall: 10 families.
The surveys: access to quality food: 3 focus groups; on gardening: 134; on diagnosis of food system: 45 producers, 9 processors and 25 distributors + 35 interviews with resource persons.Insertion in market gardening + social grocery store: 545 households; consumer cooperative: 50 families; land made available by the town hall: 10 families.
Potential for learning or transfer
This practice fostered by the POPSU Territoires project in Tournus is interesting for other regions to learn from because building a local food system is a shared objective for many local entities currently.
Food is an everyday experience that touches on the dimensions of sensitivity, sociability, and even opinion; it will be set up as a democratic question so as to generate the power to act individually and collectively on the future of the territory. This involves bringing together local, diverse and dispersed initiatives around a search for food autonomy based on social diversity, local solidarity, the development of self-production practices on the scale of the city of Tournus and its pool of life. Also, making food democracy a development project requires different stages of territorial empowerment.
Tournus was a fertile ground to develop this project: it has a dense and dynamic network of associations, an involved city council, ongoing work on food.
Food is an everyday experience that touches on the dimensions of sensitivity, sociability, and even opinion; it will be set up as a democratic question so as to generate the power to act individually and collectively on the future of the territory. This involves bringing together local, diverse and dispersed initiatives around a search for food autonomy based on social diversity, local solidarity, the development of self-production practices on the scale of the city of Tournus and its pool of life. Also, making food democracy a development project requires different stages of territorial empowerment.
Tournus was a fertile ground to develop this project: it has a dense and dynamic network of associations, an involved city council, ongoing work on food.