Picture a stretch of abandoned land in one of Marseille’s poorest northern districts, overgrown and forgotten. Now imagine it buzzing with children helping plant vegetables, neighbours meeting for a shared meal, and new pockets of biodiversity reclaiming space between the apartment blocks. This transformation is the work of the NGO Cité de l’Agriculture, which created an urban farm here as part of its mission to reconnect communities with food, land, and each other.
“Urban agriculture is ‘prisoner’ of its name,” says Jean-Baptiste Rostaing, Co-Director of the NGO. “Policymakers tend to see only the farming, and overlook the climate, social and ecological value these projects create.”
From policy to action
Projects like this do not happen in isolation. A national law from 2014 requires the Metropole to develop a Local Food Strategy (Projet Alimentaire Territorial – PAT), its scale and implementation being up to the Metropole. In Marseille’s case, the Metropole Aix-Marseille-Provence and Pays d’Arles joined forces to better tackle production and consumption areas concurrently. Together they developed the PAT through public consultations and co-design workshops with a specific attention to creating connections between local actors and supporting local initiatives.
Marseille faces high food insecurity and shrinking farmland, challenges that the Aix-Marseille Metropole has sought to address through this coordinated food strategy, a dedicated team of 20, and supporting food and agriculture work across its 92 municipalities.
Urban agriculture is ‘prisoner’ of its name. Policymakers tend to see only the farming, and overlook the climate, social and ecological value these projects create.
Experimenting towards long-term
One of the organisations that helped shape the local food strategy is the NGO Cité de l’Agriculture. Backed by both the Metropole and the City of Marseille, it played the role of a laboratory: testing ideas, proving what works, and then passing the baton to local actors who can carry projects forward.
The NGO stresses how having an impact that’s broader than food production matters, because urban farms will never feed a city on their own. Their strength lies in the connections they build between neighbours, with nature, and with the city itself. A similar spirit drives another idea: a mobile grocery store designed to bring affordable fresh produce to the city’s poorer districts. Here, accessibility is not only about geography or price. “If you arrive with all the codes of the city centre, locals will think it’s not for them,” explains Rostaing. “Symbolic accessibility is just as important.”
The same attention can be seen in other initiatives: advertising farmers’ markets on bus routes or partnering with social services to diversify clientele. Small adjustments like these can make the difference between a market that serves the whole city, and one that reinforces existing divides.
Learning and knowledge
Cité de l’Agriculture supports farmers not just through training but through everyday peer learning – from newsletters and WhatsApp exchanges to farm visits and job forums. The hyper-local focus is crucial: “Every project is specific to its neighbourhood. Every economic model is different,” insists Rostaing. “Policymakers sometimes have a hard time understanding this. It’s not as simple as pushing one local policy to promote urban agriculture on the territory.”
Both at European and national level, a lot of the funding goes towards prototyping and experiments. But it almost never translates into more long-lasting financing tools or relevant policy uptake.
The role of the Cité de l’Agriculture is tightly linked to the City of Marseille and the Metropole, as they work like an agency within the city providing different services. The NGO format, however, allows them to be more agile than traditional administrations. “The city of Marseille and the Metropole use us as intermediaries to reach local actors with a granularity that they can’t have,” says Rostaing. The Cité de l’Agriculture has also pushed for the city to apply for European projects even when local authorities were put off by the red tape and complexity to apply for such projects.
“Agriculture funding in Europe is very important but also very standardised,” says Rostaing. For example, urban farms are not eligible for regular European funding for agriculture. Another aspect Rostaing feels could be improved is project’s legacies. “Both at European and national level, a lot of the funding goes towards prototyping and experiments. But it almost never translates into more long-lasting financing tools or relevant policy uptake,” adds Rostaing. This tires and disappoints many local stakeholders who feel like their successful solutions come with an expiry date.
Surviving legacy
Representatives from the Borough of Lambeth (Greater London) and the Wallonia Region Food Policy Council (Belgium) were able to see Marseille’s success firsthand during a Cleverfood study visit. “The visit was a wonderful opportunity to see, learn and understand what is happening both at programme and practical level,” shared Vida Cunningham, Public Health Specialist at the Lambeth City Council, who was particularly interested in understanding Marseille’s governance of its urban garden – that benefits from the local Chamber of Agriculture officially recognising urban agriculture – and its efforts to engage with low income communities.
During a Cleverfood study visit, international participants also had the chance to discover projects led by local partners, such as L’Après M. Located in one of Marseille’s poorest districts, this “fast social food” restaurant stands where a McDonald’s once operated. When the outlet closed after employees unionised, it was briefly transformed into a food bank during the Covid pandemic. Later, the City of Marseille bought the site and sold it to an association for the symbolic sum of €1. Today, it distributes food aid and generates income by selling healthy, locally produced meals at affordable prices, with menus designed in collaboration with Michelin-star chefs.
“I realised that, despite being from different regions, we face similar territorial realities, especially regarding the rise of social inequalities,” added Mathilde Debetencourt, Territorial Coordinator at the Food policy Council of the WAPI region (Wallonie Picardie -Belgium). She was most inspired by the social grocery initiative VRAC. “It’s the kind of action that we could integrate into our own projects to help ensure better access to food for everyone,” she says.
Challenges of continuity
Yet just as Marseille’s model inspires cities abroad, one of its driving forces, the Cité de l’Agriculture, was forced into judicial liquidation and had to stop its activities in July 2025. This means, for example, that the project of a mobile grocery store may not see the light.
A statement signed by the NGO highlights the difficulties that associative models like the Cité de l’Agriculture face: economic models like this don’t build financial reserves; they are project-based compared to a systematic support, lacking continuity and structure; they are often forced to mix their economic model by developing commercial activities, which needs additional time and resources and feeds competition among local associations rather than collaboration; while they are often frugal in their spendings.
The closure of Cité de l’Agriculture after ten years is more than the sad ending of a local story. It is a warning shot for every city experimenting with food systems: without stable, long-term funding, even the most successful grassroots initiatives risk disappearing just as they begin to make a difference.
Marseille’s experience shows what is possible when local authorities, NGOs and communities pull together. But it also shows how fragile that progress remains. If Europe wants these solutions to last, the lesson is clear: experimentation is not enough. What cities need now is continuity.
