Rooftop gardening boom in Paris

World
Europe

Valentin Charlot is a part-time shepherd. He doesn’t graze his flock on rolling country hills, though – but in the industrial parks of Paris.

Valentin is part of a team of volunteers who look after a couple of dozen urban sheep, walking them through the city for about 10 kilometers a day, the sheep eating the grass as they go. The idea is to bring Parisians closer to nature, and reintroduce traditional ways of looking after the environment.

“Ruminants – sheep, cows, goats – are the actors that shape the landscape,” Charlot told CGTN. “It’s agriculture that forms a landscape, so in cities today all the lawns are cut by machines, so we think animals also have their place, to replace some of these machines.”

The urban shepherds aim to get people thinking about where their food comes from, and how nature plays a key role, even in the most urban lives. “Initially, people are shocked when they see the sheep here,” Charlot said. “But then they get used to the idea, and that’s when we start interesting conversations about people’s relationship to nature.”

CGTN Photo

Local businesses now pay the shepherds to keep their lawns neat – although Charlot is keen to stress sheep aren’t just living lawnmowers, and the wellbeing of the animals is paramount.

“City pollution isn’t really a problem for their health,” he told CGTN. “But we have to make sure they don’t just eat city grass.”

The urban shepherds are just one of a series of farming projects that have sprung up in recent years in Paris – 70 businesses recently joined an initiative run by City Hall to start growing fruits and vegetables on their roofs, and a number of famous public buildings, including the Paris Opera, have turned part of their roof space over to urban farmers.

The rooftop garden of the Pullman hotel by the Eiffel Tower, for example, produces honey, herbs, salad leaves and eggs for the hotel kitchen – while a neighboring hotel garden even made headlines in December when a rare and valuable wild truffle was found there.

CGTN Photo

The city’s aim is to have 100 hectares of rooftop vegetable gardens by next year – while underground car parks are being used to grow mushrooms on beds made from used coffee grounds.

According to Valentin Charlot, the trend shows Parisians’ relationship with the food they eat is changing – as people increasingly want to know exactly where their food has come from, and how it was produced.