This paper deals with the relations between city and farming activities through long term history, spatial dynamics and analysis of public policies. The growth of Montpellier-city was historically linked to the expansion of the vineyard and wine economy. In the second half of the 20th century however, the city and farming drew apart: urban sprawl versus the wine industry. Over a decade, new relations have arisen: Montpellier city-region has linked high quality wines to its image and set up a Masterplan including planning tools for conservation of farmland and containment of urban sprawl. At the same time, the decline in the wine industry has released land for new farming systems that are better connected with growing urban demands for local food. Today, the future of agriculture is open: various combinations of farming systems are identified on the fringes of Montpellier. Public actors are better taking agriculture into account in land use planning and territorial projects. Further outwards from the city, areas of fast residential suburban growth are also experiencing new farming systems based on terroir production and short food supply chains. The case of the Montpellier city-region offers a large panel of the agri-urban trends that can be observed around Mediterranean cities of Southern Europe, which leads us to seek to clarify the scales of space and time of agricultural urban systems.