At present, most cities have no coherent vision on the agricultural land within their jurisdiction. This puts agricultural land in a fragile position. Agroecology has a role to play to turn this around because it has the unique potential to break the conflict between environmental objectives and productive objectives in the open space arena. A growing number of cities realise that they need specific farmers close to the city: to reach ambitious goals around local food production, and to help realise climate policy, to combat the loss of biodiversity, to manage the landscape, and so on. What if agroecology became a matter of public policy?