Far from the small municipal park of yesteryear, green now grows everywhere in the city.
Walls and roofs vegetated by landscapers, wooded buildings, urban farms, exploited wasteland… and so many new professions!
Among the sectors that are budding under concrete, that of urban agriculture, on roofs or at ground level.
The Parisian company GreenSheep thus has a herd of 2,000 sheep and goats followed by 80 shepherds, which it lends to businesses and other communities to maintain their green spaces.
The start-up Cycloponics has created the first urban organic farm in the capital in the abandoned parking lot of a bar of buildings in the 18th arrondissement.
Urban agriculture is increasingly popular with young people.
So much so that the famous Breuil school, also in Paris, made it a specialization in 2017 via a nine-month post-baccalaureate training course, including twenty-two weeks of internship.
Vertigo prohibited for greening walls and roofs
Among the trades which climb, the revegetation of walls and roofs.
A very technical specialty for which vertigo is prohibited.
It consists of working with drills and saws to pre-fabricate structures in a workshop, before installing them vertically on site.
Today, there is not yet a specific diploma.
The Green Spirit company, located in Saint-Guinoux (Ille-et-Vilaine), recruits versatile technicians with carpentry training (professional bac) and internally trains future urban vegetators for three years.
You have to be very flexible about schedules, adapt to changing weather and accept shifted schedules.
The projects can be long and intensive.
It is a physical job, but one that is not reserved for "big arms".
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According to Lauriane Garcia-Traoré, project manager at IRFEDD (Regional training institute for the environment and sustainable development) located near Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), “We are experiencing a turning point in the training of these new green professions ”.
“They are developing and becoming more professional, but in France we still lack specific certifying and diploma training courses,” she notes.
What training?
The royal road remains the network of agricultural vocational training centers (certified by the Ministry of Agriculture) which issue a professional certificate.
“The levels are very varied in these trades, from CAP to engineer diploma in agronomy, through professional baccalaureate, BTS and licenses,” says Lauriane Garcia-Traoré.
Another sign of the times, there are more and more retraining.
“In some of our training courses at IRFEDD, most of the students do not come from an agricultural background,” she notes.
There are a lot of young people from a business school, seduced by urban ecology ”.
Among the best-known qualifying training courses, those of Agro campus Ouest in Angers (Maine-et-Loire) and Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) and Agro Paris Tech, (engineering of green spaces), UniLaSalle in Rouen, in Seine-Maritime (master's degree in urban agriculture and green cities), and the Ecole du Breuil in the city of Paris (bachelor's degree in urban plant eco-landscape).
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Among the shorter professional courses, the latter trains gardeners, technicians and managers specializing in landscape and horticulture.
Other short courses are offered by the Chamber of Agriculture of Ile-de-France, Astredhor in Paris (horticulture), the EPLEFPA of Lyon (Rhône), Montpellier Sup-Agro (Hérault), the Cfppa Vaucluse in Carpentras , the MFR of Eyragues (Bouches-du-Rhône)… Courses which spread according to a demand which soars.
Question salary, it takes 3500 euros net monthly for an engineer, 2500 for a technician, the minimum wage for a gardener.
Several statuses are possible: private (employee of a company), territorial official (within town halls and communities) or liberal (business creator).
After HEC, he starts!
Whatever the sector chosen, the various avenues that lead to these new jobs as city gardeners are very attractive.
With his engineering degree and his master's MBA at HEC, Paul, 37, set off for a classic career.
"I started in highways and airports," says the young man.
But here it is, the green fiber won him over: "I realized that putting plants in the city made it more pleasant, that making the daily life of the inhabitants of urban areas green had a meaning".
Paul then met Pierre-Frédéric, also a young engineer but graduated from INRA (National Institute of Agronomic Research).
They both founded their own business, "Urban picking", and started farming in the city!
“An economic model that works,” says Paul.
We green, we produce, we harvest and we resell our organic fruits and vegetables ... In addition, it cleans up and creates social links.
"
Growing tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and red berries on the rooftops of Paris, a bit of a crazy gamble, but one that works brilliantly.
Their star achievement: the vegetal arch of the urban farm, in the 20th arrondissement of the capital, on the top floor of 20, rue Albert-Marquet.
This is where the famous cook Thierry Marx created his reintegration school.
Picking is at your fingertips!
To know more :
"Practical manifesto of urban vegetation" by Ophélie Damblé and Julie Céré, Ed. Solar, 180 pages, 14.95 euros. And also Agrorientation, site for trades and training in agriculture, agrifood and the environment.