Full case study report: Biovallée - France

Summary

The Drôme valley is the most developed area in France with respect to organic agriculture. In this small region (2200 km², 54000 inhabitants), organic production represents 30% of agricultural land, high above the national average of 3%. A public project was launched in 2009 by the 102 municipalities of the valley: the Biovallée project (www.biovallee.fr). The Biovallée project aims at making the Drôme valley a pilot territory in terms of sustainable development. Therefore it includes operational objectives for 2020 in a diversity of sectors, among which energy (coverage of 100% of household consumption with renewable energies), waste (a 50% reduction), land use (no more destruction of arable land), housing (building 5 eco-neighbourhoods), education and training (developing high-level training programs on sustainable development). Agriculture is one of the three main components of this program, along with energy and training. In this sector, the aim is to reach 50% of farmers and farming surfaces, 80% of public food procurement in organic, and 50% of pesticide use. Despite the Biovallée project is not only focussed on organic food chains, it provides a large panel of production and marketing actors, who try to add value dimensions to the organic products, with financial support as well as with coordination. Biovallée is one of the three territorial case studies of HealthyGrowth, along with the Biodistretto Cilento (It) and the Bioregion Mühlviertel (Au). Territorial case studies are not focused on a single chain but on a whole territorial agrifood system (Lamine et al., 2012). This allows to analyse more deeply the modes of coordination between various actors and institutions (public and private), the management and governance models and the ways these contribute to maintain the ’added value’. As they differ from the value-chain focus of the other case studies of the HealthyGrowth project, some other dimensions are irrelevant in our case and will not be explored in detail.