Élevage et urbanité, dans les villes développées ou en développement, quelles oppositions et quelles complémentarités ?

Abstract

Generally banned from cities for health and hygiene reasons, urban livestock farming has long been considered as a residual activity, imported by the rural exodus, which was inexorably disappearing as a result of urbanization. The advent of the car-based society has also put an end to the use of draught animals for transport in many contexts. This dual situation explains the low interest shown by agricultural and urban planning research in this topical urban livestock issue. Indeed, 10 % of the world’s livestock live in urban or peri-urban areas. Depending on the context, urban livestock farming meets different needs: food, landscape maintenance, agricultural fertilization, transport, recreational activities; but it also generates a number of environmental nuisances and conflicts. The return of livestock farming through agri-urban projects in northern cities and the maintenance or even development of livestock farming in southern cities do not offer the same challenges for the organization of cities and the regulation of this activity. In this article, we provide an overview of some of the issues and challenges related to urban livestock and the research questions raised by the literature and field observations.

Keywords

• food system relocalisation
• livestock
• urban agriculture
• urban/rural relations