Pilot project manager:
Commune de Romainville (RMN)
Pilot Location:
Romainville (France)
Vertical farm, educational garden, sustainable and social food, market gardening and mushroom production, circular innovation and short food chain
Background:
The Cité Maraîchère is a vertical greenhouse devoted to urban agriculture (700 m2 for market garden production in boxes and 130 m2 in the basement for mushrooms and French endive production). Its challenges: bring out a new way of eating in a popular area located near the city centre; raise awareness and offer workshops on sustainable food, nature in the city and eco-citizenship; develop vocational training and promote social inclusion by setting up an integration project.
The vertical market garden city hosts various equipment and activities such as a professional kitchen, a café-canteen, educational spaces, workshops for all audiences, meeting and cultural events, educational gardens and a collective compost.
The Cité Maraîchère is a municipal facility serving inhabitants and stakeholders in the social and solidarity economy. Market gardening and animation services are provided by teams of integration employees of the new Communal Agency for Ecological and Solidarity Transition and the café-canteen will be operated, from the summer of 2021, by an external partner. While the market gardening activities began in January 2021, the first educational activities will be launched in spring 2021, initially with City departments and a participatory worksite with residents for the outdoor spaces.
Vision:
The social project is to educate citizens to ecology and sustainable food, and supply fresh and local products at affordable prices for inhabitants.
The agronomic project is to test market gardening in boxes, without synthetic chemical inputs and with a circular substrate (composed of crushed cellular concrete from construction waste, compost and mushroom cultivation waste). 753 boxes have been installed in the two vertical greenhouses of the Cité Maraîchère. These operate without heating or artificial light, with natural ventilation and a drip watering controlled by a programmable system.
Market gardening production will be seasonal, varied and with common species (fruits vegetables, leaf vegetables, berries, aromatics). In the basement will be cultivated oyster mushrooms, shiitake and French endives.
As part of the FoodE project, the Cité Maraîchère is at the same time a demonstrator, a place of awareness raising and an event organiser.
Find more information about the Cité Maraîchère here.
In collaboration with FoodE partners:
Commune de Romainville (FR), Institut des Sciences et Industries du Vivant et de l’Environnement – Agro Paris Tech (FR), University of Bologna (IT), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES), Nabolagshager AS (NO)
Attached documents
