It is the main gateway to Paris and the first vision of the country for tens of millions of foreigners each year: The 20 km of the A1 motorway between the Roissy airport and the Porte de la Chapelle (18th century) have long been a sad spectacle: slopes poorly maintained, walls tagged, trash litter and record of pollution …
It is nevertheless along this axis that the French agricultural giant InVivo (230 cooperatives) is going through 200,000 vehicles a day in Saint-Denis (for 120 million a year on the entire route) Bringing together 300,000 farmers, 9,200 employees) wants to create an agricultural “valley”. A project that DG Thierry Blandinières will present this Wednesday morning at a forum of the employers’ association Paris Ile-de-France Economic Capital and of which we reveal the first details.
“We want to make the A1 a global showcase of our know-how in urban and ecological agriculture with the objective of feeding the population locally,” announces the boss of InVivo. Around the airport platform, the group wants to first plant large crops of wheat, rapeseed or barley but also develop market gardening, orchards or even vineyards. A key: products that will be distributed to individuals or restaurants at the airport. “A land census is underway but there are plenty of land to be reconquered, whether public or owned by companies,” said Antoine Poupart, in charge of the project at InVivo.
In proportion to the progress towards Paris, the “Happy Valley” will be bordered by the productive greenhouses but also by agriculture on the roofs of buildings, plants “purifying air” on the edges of the highway or walls Vegetation. In the long term, In Vivo expects a potential of 5,000 ha to be transformed. An operation that is ecologically exemplary with the creation of hedges, ponds or green corridors for the development of wildlife.
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