The nitrogen cycle of pre-industrial ecosystems has long been remarkably closed, in spite of the high mobility of this element in the atmosphere and hydrosphere. Inter-regional and international commercial exchanges of agricultural goods, which considerably increased after the generalization of the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, introduced an additional type of nitrogen mobility, which nowadays rivals the atmospheric and hydrological fluxes in intensity, and causes their enhancement at the local, regional and global scales. Eighty-five per cent of the net anthropogenic input of reactive nitrogen occurs on only 43 per cent of the land area. Modern agriculture based on the use of synthetic fertilizers and the decoupling of crop and animal production is responsible for the largest part of anthropogenic losses of reactive nitrogen to the environment. In terms of levers for better managing the nitrogen cascade, beyond technical improvement of agricultural practices tending to increase nitrogen use efficiency, or environmental engineering management measures to increase nitrogen sinks in the landscape, the need to better localize crop production and livestock breeding, on the one hand, and agriculture and food demand on the other hand, is put forward as a condition to being able to supply food to human populations while preserving environmental resources.

Between the tenth and twentieth century the population of Paris city increased from a few thousand to near 10 million inhabitants. In response to the growing urban demand during this period, the agrarian systems of the surrounding rural areas tremendously increased their potential for commercial export of agricultural products, made possible by a surplus of agricultural production over local consumption by humans and livestock in these areas. Expressed in terms of nitrogen, the potential for export increased from about 60 kg N/km²/year of rural territory in the Middle Ages, to more than 5,000 kg N/km²/year from modern agriculture. As a result of the balance between urban population growth and rural productivity, the rural area required to supply Paris (i.e. its food-print) did not change substantially for several centuries, remaining at the size of the Seine watershed surrounding the city (around 60,000 km²). The theoretical estimate of the size of the supplying hinterland at the end of the eighteenth century is confirmed by the figures deduced from the analysis of the historical city toll data (octroi). During the second half of the twentieth century, the ‘food-print’ of Paris reduced in size, owing to an unprecedented increase in the potential for commercial export associated with modern agricultural systems based on chemical N fertilization. We argue that analysing the capacity of territories to satisfy the demand for nitrogen-containing food products of local or distant urban population and markets might provide new and useful insights when assessing world food resource allocation in the context of increasing population and urbanization.

The food supply to a large metropolis such as Paris involves huge fluxes of goods, which considerably impact the surrounding rural territories. Here, we present an attempt to localise Paris food supply areas, over a period of two centuries (1786, 1886, 2006), based on the analysis of data from transportation and production statistics for cereals, animal products, and fruits and vegetables, all three categories being expressed in terms of their nitrogen (i.e. protein) content. The results show contrasting trends for the three types of agricultural products. As for cereals, the Paris supply area remained for the most part restricted to the central area of the Paris basin, a region which gradually became specialised in intensive cereal production. Conversely, as animal farming had been progressively excluded from this area, regions located west and north of Paris (Brittany, Normandy, Nord-Pas-de-Calais) gradually dominated the supply of animal products to the metropolis. In addition, imported feed from South America today contributes as much as one-third of the total ration of feed in the livestock raised in these regions. For fruits and vegetables, about one-half of the Paris supply currently comes from long-distance imports, the other half coming from areas less than 200 km from Paris. As a whole, the Paris food supply area, although it has obviously enlarged in recent periods, is still anchored to an unexpected extent (about 50%) in its traditional nearby hinterland roughly coinciding with the Seine watershed, and in the regions specialised in animal farming located west and north. On the other hand, the agricultural system of the main food supply areas has considerably opened to global markets.