The current president of the association Le Jardin des Mille Pas, Arthur Akkouche, agreed to do an interview for Rennes'ponsible and talk about sustainable food production and consumption.

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Can you tell us what the Jardin des Mille Pas is?

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It is an association that manages an educational garden in agroecology and permaculture located at the edge of the city of Rennes in the Prévalaye sector. The association has several activities: workshops, school and extracurricular activities, production and sale of vegetables, as well as training courses. Workshops can be on the theme of the plants' virtues or the creation of a vegetable garden in agroecology. All these courses are closely linked to food. The association's main objective is to give back food sovereignty to the people and to allow them to know what is on their plate. Since recently, we have been developing a link with another association "La basse-cour" which is a cultural and catering place next to the garden.

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For you, how does this association fit in with more sustainable food production and consumption?

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The association is part of a more sustainable food production in the sense that it goes through education and information. But the information is not only given in a bottom-up way, from the association to the public, it is transmitted through exchanges with the people who come to participate in the school animations and training sessions. For example, during school activities, we start with what the child knows to develop a subject and teach him/her new things. The association's approach is sustainable in the social sense as well as in the food sense. This is reflected in the way the team operates, which is horizontal, there is no leader. The courses and training revolve around the exchange of knowledge, even within the framework of production, since the market gardener is helped by volunteers who come most often to get advice and learn how to do their own vegetable garden. The volunteers then learn in turn to produce organic and local vegetables in agroecology. The motivation of the association is to share the notion of producing well to eat well.

 

Agroecology is a scientific discipline that seeks to include all the systemic components of ecology in agronomy, taking into account all the characteristics of the ecosystem and its complexity, respecting the cultivated land and limiting the use of inputs. In agroecology, we assume that everything is useful, even the bad weeds! In the garden, everything is done by hand, the soil is not turned over with machines, mowing is limited so as not to destabilise the ecosystems too much, and islands of greenery are kept to maintain a diversity of living species and landscapes. It is very important to have a sufficient diversity of plant and animal species so that they can regulate each other, thus avoiding the proliferation of pests. Sustainable food is sustainable in the long term, and promoting agroecology means promoting biodiversity that is useful for production, production that does not damage the land and is therefore more sustainable. 

Thus, the association is committed to social, ecological and economic sustainability. The prices of vegetables and training are very affordable for organic and agroecological production. 

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Concerning a more sustainable consumption, the Jardin des Milles Pas seeks to bring back the taste of good things by giving real food that has been cultivated with respect for the environment, animals and plants. The association seeks to pass on knowledge, whether in terms of creating a vegetable garden or of food. The aim is to give people the tools to reappropriate food, to be able to do it themselves. In addition, short circuits or even ultra-short circuits are favoured, such as the supply of the kitchens of La basse-cour by the vegetable garden of the Jardin des Milles Pas. 

 

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Our website focuses on the theme of food waste and waste generated by packaging. How does Jardin de Milles Pas address this type of issue? Do you have any initiatives in place in relation to this? 

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Waste generation is almost zero during production, pots for seedlings are reused as much as possible, vegetables are hardly washed. Unsold produce is either consumed by the team, or replanted (for example, potatoes can be made to bud), or put into the compost. In the context of activities with children, materials are recovered. For example, for activities on seedlings in pots, we use yoghurt pots. Even for the vegetable garden, we recover tarpaulins, plants for mulching, we have dry toilets... one of the mottos of the association is "we do with what we have"! Otherwise, initiatives come from individuals rather than from the association's directives, since everyone in the team is sensitive to this type of problem. 

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