AgroParisTech is testing techniques that could be used in urban agriculture

Brut America

This engineering school is testing new methods to modernize and maximize urban agriculture. (via Brut nature)

Transcript

00:00Hello everyone, welcome to the roof of Agro-ParisTech.

00:03We are carrying out experiments to find out how to grow on the roofs.

00:30Around me, I have been carrying out experiments since 2012.

00:34And our main goal is to see how we can cultivate only from products that come from the city.

00:40That is to say, we do not use natural soil.

00:42We only use products such as compost, coffee grounds, broken brick, crushed wood,

00:47everything that can be found in the city and that can be used to produce food.

00:50The interest is that behind these current waste, what happens?

00:53They are either incinerated or buried for their immense majority.

00:56And so that's nutrients, that's CO2 that is rejected.

00:59So it's a very important environmental impact, while these waste are actually products and we can reuse them.

01:04And the idea is that we put these materials in bins each time.

01:07And on it, we look at how much we can produce, what is the quality of what we produce, how this soil will evolve.

01:12At the moment, what do we have on the roof?

01:14So we have an association with chourave, beets, chives and fennel.

01:18So you see that we are trying to densify the vegetables as much as possible,

01:21so that we have a production that is as important as possible.

01:24And the idea is also to associate vegetables that are complementary.

01:27Typically, not this year, but the other years, we had an association of chou and beans.

01:30The idea is that there is one that will develop and use airspace, it is the bean.

01:34The chou will stay on the ground with a relatively deep root system.

01:37We test a whole bunch of vegetables, fruit trees, to see a little what works or not.

01:41Here in front of me, I have cassis trees.

01:43We have a vine foot, raspberries.

01:45Here we have a cherry tree, an apple tree, a leek tree.

01:47And on the roofs, there is potentially everything that can grow.

01:50Around me, I have melissa, lavender, I have a kiwi tree here.

01:54I have artichoke feet, which are adored by bees and ants.

01:59And so here we enter a second area of the roof,

02:02an area that is dedicated to questions around biodiversity.

02:07Because these spaces are above all spaces of nature

02:10that can be used to house a whole bunch of species in terms of fauna and flora.

02:14So the goal of an area like this is first of all to be a tree, if I may say, of biodiversity.

02:20That is to say, to welcome a certain number of species.

02:22And the idea that we had at the beginning, but that we could never test directly,

02:25is also that it serves the gardener.

02:27Because there are auxiliary cultures, typically the coccinellae,

02:30who can arrive in this type of area and then be beneficiary at the level of the gardener.

02:42In cities like Paris, which are very dense, we lack natural spaces.

02:46And the first idea here was to use spaces that are the roofs,

02:50which are currently mostly not valued.

02:52Roofs can represent up to 32% of the surface of a city.

02:54At the moment, these are surfaces that are lost.

02:56So the first reason is to use lost spaces.

02:58The second reason is to generate food production in these spaces.

03:02And also generate spaces where people can come,

03:05can garden, can simply spend time,

03:08either around educational, social activities, or just moments together.

03:11And the third thing, which is what I was talking about earlier,

03:14is that these roofs are useful to the city,

03:16partly because of what we call ecosystemic services.

03:18That is, the fact that they retain water, that they store carbon.

03:21All this will benefit the city's functioning,

03:23and it will make cities a little more livable.

03:25And this is one of the major challenges in the development of cities today.

Category

Transcript

Recommended