Before my arrival the farm was based on intensive production where the sale values outweighed the costs of fertilisers and insecticides etc required for the cereal crops, as well as the cost of cattle feed; rich in starch provided by the corn & other cereals & often complimented by soja which is extremely adapted to Blonde Aquitaine cattle.

In 2002, joining my father on the farm, we created 2 cow sheds in order to adapt to the current regulations and in order to develop the herd of Blonde Aquitaine cattle. I stopped ploughing and replaced this via a system called Conservation Agriculture (CA) in an attempt to diminish the work load and the use of machinery on the land whilst redevelopping soil structure and quality.

In 2008 my father retired and after several years of working with the help of a part-time worker, I decided to go it alone, diminish the size of my herd and continue further with ‘CA’. I invested along with several other farmers from Meigne Le Vicomte in a direct seeder and a Striptill to reduce soil tillage in order to gain time and improve soil fertility.

Our farm has been run by the family for four generations and over time has evolved the breeding of our herd, who remain for me the main feature of sustainable, healthy & balanced farming.

We are based in France within the North East region of the ‘Maine et Loire’, bordering the regions of the ‘Sarthe’ & ‘Indre et Loire’. In our region the soil is diverse; providing heavy clay type soil in the winter which has a good capacity to produce during dry periods as well as superficial & chalky soil called ‘faluns;’ which remain drier in the winter but without a lot of production in the summer months. This diversity is a big advantage for us as it allows us to produce a wide variety of cereal crops & forage for our herd as well as varied pastures throughout the seasons.

It was in 2016, after several years of grain prices dropping along with the price for meat and supplemented by a disastrous harvest due to climatic conditions, I decided to discontinue the classic system of breeding the herd and to take more time to commercialise my animals by having closer contact with the consumers in order to be able to show them my way of breeding.

Still with the concern for conservation and preservation of nature and often having the necessity to spray my cereal crops with chemicals that were having a devastating effect on my soil, the idea of organic farming that had long been in my mind became the foremost point of our project. A concern bothered me though, the Blondes - requiring too much cereal for fattening and on top of this not being used to grazing, a fundamental element for organic breeding.

Rachel, of English origin, worked at the time in Insurance but always loved to help me on the farm and with looking after the cows. She wanted to invest more of her time on the farm including the administration and accountancy (something which I was more than happy to pass over to her!). For a while now she had spoken to me about the famous Aberdeen Angus; a rustic breed ideally adapted to grazing, calm and renown worldwide for it’s well marbled and sumptous tasting meat! Convinced, it remained for us to seed various new pastures and construct our herd of AberdeeN Angus. After several visits, we found what we were looking for with the help of three farmers in the UK, Tony, Rob & Angus and a small herd of heifers all registered with the Aberdeen Angus society in Scotland.

2020 promises to be a key year for us with Rachel fully integrating into the farm and with our total conversion to organic farming! ……