AgroVeloCity: A study, a project, an adventure
AgroVeloCity is a non-profit organization that promotes and study every kind of urban agriculture in order to make the public aware of it. The heart of the organization, a project : a 3000 km (2000 miles) bike trip through North America in order to visit different american and canadian stakeholders of urban agriculture.
A project that is part of an overall reflection
The AgroVelo project began in 2013 from the initiative of three students of the agronomic engineer school of Montpellier Supagro. They decided to study European urban agriculture through an 8 months bike trip and established the organization Agrovélocités. And in 2014, two students from the same university decided to go to the East Coast of North America to continue the study. Back from their journey, they began to share their experiences by making conferences in several french cities. Today, it’s with their support and a close partnership that we build the project AgroVeloCity to continue the study and take it to an extra-european level. We invite you to visit their website : www.agrovelocites.org
Why a bike trip?
We think think that it’s a clean transport mode, fast enough to go through the countries we want to visit, but slow enough to let us the time to meet poeple during our journey. It’s a soft, environmentaly friendly and affordable means of travel. It’s also a observation tool that helps us understanding the lanscapes of the cities. It’s a brigde, something that creates human link and allows a lot of meetings. It’s a way to challenge ouselves, to learn how to go through our individual limits together.
Agrovelocity: a two faces project
An international academic study
Agrovelocity is a professional, technical, economic and societal study of the north-american urban agriculture model. It is conducted with different academic supports such as the « UMR innovation » of the french National Institute for Agricultural Research based in the university of AgroParisTech. We also benefit from our close partnership with Agrovélocités to provide us with some extra-results for our study. At the end of our journey, we plan to make conferences and write scientific papers about our discoveries.
A modern communication with subtle humour for the general public
The project also aims to product videos of scientific popularisation about urban agriculture for the general public. During our journey, we will produce and broadcast some short videos about particular subjects linked to urban agriculture (an innovative technic, a garden, a trend or even a city). Inspired by what the Youtube platform offers today in scientific popularisation and convinced that it’s a robust way of communication, we will broadcast all our videos on this launch pad.