Farmland is currently atracting new societal and scientific interest. Its management is presented as a cornerstone for adapting agriculture to societal expectations concerning food, landscape and the environment. I analyse how these issues shape local public action on farmland and trigger local innovations in the South of France (Hérault). I focus on the rationales, instruments and partners of local authorities’ land strategies. Forward-thinking province-based policy on fragile natural areas in the 1980s led to the establishment of vast public open green spaces for recreational activities, managed partially using agroecological methods. Since 2000, inter-municipal authorities have contributed to the scaling of farmland innovations, allowing for their replication (scaling out), their institutionalisation (scaling up) and the dissemination of new principles of land management (scaling deep). Finally, I highlight the importance of individuals and socio-political power relations in these innovation pathways. My results suggest avenues for critical analyses of innovations in farmland management, for research on the spatial coexistence of agricultural and food models and more broadly on the land-food nexus.