Mafate – Managing the use of agricultural land under pressure

Preserving agricultural land has become a major public policy issue since the 2000s, in view of the increasing scarcity of land and competition between its uses. The goal of zero net artificialization (ZAN) introduced by the Climate and Resilience Act of August 2021 means that we need to reconsider how we preserve and manage agricultural land.

In mountain areas, particularly in the Rhône-Alpes region, the ZAN objective accentuates the tensions linked to the preservation of agricultural land even more than elsewhere. In addition to spatial and topographical constraints, there is strong competition between uses, between agricultural activity and environmental preservation.

In this context, we are witnessing the emergence of local experiments based on collective action to promote certain uses of agricultural land, in particular the relocation of food supplies. These experiments involve citizens and/or local authorities, and are changing the way land is traditionally managed, mainly by landowners and farmers.

The Mafate project – which is part of the work led by Arnaud Buchs and Nicolas Buclet (Pacte) – studies the ways in which these collective actions relate to territorial public policies confronted with the ZAN objective, and how this impacts agricultural land governance in mountain territories. It is structured around three axes:

• The changes brought about by the ZAN objective, in particular the trade-offs caused by this top-down regulation, which could come into tension with other objectives prioritized at local level.
• Institutional arrangements involving collective action to manage agricultural land, such as collective farms, and their ability to provide a “new” response to the need to preserve certain uses of agricultural land.
• The meeting of the two previous axes – the ZAN objective and emerging initiatives – in terms of their combined ability to achieve the objectives set by public policy.