Relying on a historical and empirical approach, and mobilizing the conceptual framework of territorial ecology, our work analyzes the relationships between the city and agriculture, amidst a period of deep agricultural and urban mutations, and globalization, which allegedly divested the city of the agricultural issue. Nevertheless, since 1945, the city has been maintaining a deep yet changing relationship to agriculture. After the war, the city became the arm of the state for the modernization of the agricultural supply chain and transformation tools, thus contributing to the insertion of local production into the food system, and in this way developed its agro-industrial economy. The city tried to preserve its central function in agricultural trade by renovative market infrastructures. Those progressively offered an alternative to dominant channels, enabling the insertion into the market of artisanal products which today are valued for their link to the "terroir". In the 1950s, the city built its territorial image by developing immaterial contents for agriculture, and promoting local products and savoir-faire. In so doing, it has contributed to the preservation, until 2012, of revenues linked to the territorial anchorage which guarantees the sustainability of local tools and operators. More recently, it has taken action for local sourcing of school canteens, and has been basing its urban development project on local products and landscapes. Brive reveals the role of goods-shipping cities in the territorial reshuffling of the food system, and the intermediation.
