The social uses of agriculture on the outskirts of the city: integration gardens in the Île-de-France region

The Île-de-France region currently has around forty integration gardens which welcome people who are either seeking to re-engage through a team-based project without an employment contract (social integration gardens) or employed people who, thanks to the garden, are beginning to re-establish a work routine and habits, with the production and distribution of vegetables to a network of members serving as the basis for activities at the ‘integration garden through economic activity’ (JIAE). On average, JIAEs achieve a self-financing rate of just 10.5 per cent, but they enable the majority of gardeners to move on having overcome one of the obstacles they face in their job search, and to find employment in 30 per cent of cases. Although the main objective of these organisations is social reintegration rather than agricultural production, the gardens have, for better or worse, carved out a place for themselves both in peri-urban areas and within the organic market gardening sector. They also serve as spaces for mediation within the various types of peri-urban areas where they have taken root. Ultimately, they challenge other open spaces – as well as built-up areas – through their density of food-producing, landscape and ecological functions, but also through their density of jobs and social functions.