Abstract EN:

For forty years, important transformations have been disrepting agriculture in this area. Traditional crops and methods are being abandoned in provence, extensive cereal farming, olive and wine-growing are declining while sheep and pig breeding are disappearing. Farmers from the marseilles area have revitalized agriculture in places. Since 1955, the abundant water resources combined with an exceptionally favourable microclimate have, with the development of irrigation and sheltering techniques in market-gardening for example, resulted in higher crop-yields. However, the production of olive oil in the lower valley of the arc, characteristic of the bouches-du-rhone, remains a traditional activity. Nevertheless, urban and industrial expansion together with new means of communication are gradually encroaching upon the rural world, causing the decline of an agriculture which would already have required a protectionist policy at a time when it was still dynamic and capable of modernizing itself. As early as 1970, official efforts were initiated for safeguareling the semi-rural milieu of the region, including one section withen the new town of vitrolles. The future of agriculture remains precarious : urban and industrial growth is still a threat. The only alternative is investing in advanced farming adapted to the new conditions of the e. C. C.