The Future of Farming in Maisons
The future of farming in Maisons was under discussion last night. A work shop with Liens de Terre was organised to look at what are the possibilities, 18 people turned up including Kevin, deputy Mayor, who put the event together, all three plant growers, the Mayor, Florie, and Cecile from the council, and the animator Roxanne from Terre de Liens.
First a few words about Liens de Terre, they are an association which brings together investors with framing projects. The objective is to support new farms, farms passing from one family member to another and folks buying old farms.
In France farms are disappearing at an alarming rate for a variety of reasons.
Economic, it is hard to make a living farming
Generational; younger people are not so keen to take over the family farm,
Modernisation, Farm expansion, despite the attempts to reform the Common Agricultural policy the productivist focus is still very much there, and in that size does matter, the bigger you are the more support you get. Also, particularly in livestock intensification is the key to surviving in the market, indoor pig farms, and with avian flue, large scale chicken factories.
Urbanisation. Lotissements, the building of housing units on the outskirts of villages and towns are eating into fertile agricultural land.
Here in Maisons it is a combination of the first three that have hit us since the war. A marginal community, far from markets with marginal land is simply not economical to farm successfully, particularly in an agricultural market dominated by mechanisation, causing young people to migrate for job opportunities. Ironically post COVID, if indeed we are post COVID while it has not lead to lottissemnts has snapped up the free houses in the village. Pre COVID the Hautes Corbieres was covered in Maison a Vendre signs, now it is covered in Vendu signs.
At the moment there are three small pépiniéristes in Maisons, us with out aromatic herbs, Sam and Cecile with their mix of vegetables and flowers, and Paul and Vero with his trees and plants. The North of the Commune is dominated by pasture and fodder crops for sheep herders in Davejean and Derniercuiette. Their remains some vines exploited by a small high quality vigneron in Derniercuette, and the rest worked by put of village Co-operators who ship the raisons down to the Tailiaran Co-op. Our own Cave Co_op closed years ago and has now been transformed into apartments by John and Lyn.
Around the village there are numerous vegetable plots that are predominantly privately held but mainly neglected.
The unused land and thee South of the commune is dominated steep hills and by the slopes of Mont Tauch covered in thick Garrigue and young forest of green and white oaks. There remains some pine forest around the village and to the Eastern part of the commune.
Water predominantly comes from Mont Tauch behind us and is piped down to the village, and for the Northern side of the commune then pumped up. A disused water canal flows down from an old mine in the North.
Historically Maisons has a subsistence agriculture, with animals grazing playing an important role in external income, as was shown by the 27 shepherd dwelling in the commune, cereals were grown for local consumption both by humans and work animals, they fed the three wind mills of the village. The quality of the fruit and vegetables grown around the village was noted.
Back to the workshop. After a brief introduction and presentation the meeting broke up into three groups to look at the available land and to try to identify possibilities. I can’t really say what the other groups discussed by mine, which comprised of Kevin, Paul and a small homesteader from Padern had an interesting discussion about the possibility of small scale horticulture, trees adapted to the environment, poultry, pigs and honey. Paul has been doing some fascinating work on the possibility of pistachios, a practice re introduced in Spain, as fast growing disease hardy trees, despite the competition from California and Latin America , the wonderful Iranian producers are stuck behind the boycott, there is growing proof the pistachios can be grown profitably in the Western Med. As a climate change resistant tree I am sure we will be hearing more of it soon, especially from Paul.
The plenary session was a bit of an open free for all. For the Terre de Liens animator the key issue was identifying land that could be worked. Personally I was more interested in identifying the type of production that could be possible before just looking at land. In Maisons the available land comprises of small plots around the village, or forested hillside. There are some plots of potential pasture that could be targetted but under SAFER rules the existing sheep producers have priority.
Whatever it is the future involves a high intensity production of a product with value. The marginal position of the village, and the poor quality of most of our land means that large scale production, cereals, beef or diary are just not possible. So that focuses on horticulture, poultry, free range pork, apiculture, fruit and nut trees, and PPAM, aromatic plants. As much of the land has not been worked for decades the question of organic transformation is also attractive as much can pass direct to organic without the usual three year transition, period.
I also think that building on what is already in place rather than starting a fresh has its strong points for the future of farming in Maisons. We already have three plant producers in the commune, indeed we are the only agricultural projects based in the commune. Last year we started to organise a Spring and an Autumn plant festivals to give value to our work. Both were small but successful. A forth small plant project may also be setting up this year. Related projects, such as aromatic plant production for essential oil and dried herbs; apiculture as a side project. The forest is young and wild so an agroforestry project, such as specialist pigs like Noire de Bigorre, would both manage and validate parts of the commune. Though food stuff would have to be imported, equally poultry, despite the avian flu, would be an interesting project, though the same caveat about importing food would apply. The possibility of fruit farming using tress that are both local and hardy has an interesting for the future of farming in Maisons; as well as pistachios.
Accommodation is also a key a factor, second home now dominate the village. From a high point in the mid 19th century of 350 people the permanent population is down to 44, and not all of them really live in the village, the Mayor spends her working life in the PO and the deputy Mayor lives in another village. Finding low cost accommodation, and barns and garages is going to be no easy task.
What is clear, in my mind al least, is that no project is golden key to wealth, small scale production on marginal land is hard and badly paid work, if seen only in an economic sense. Other additional sources of income are needs, whether this be installing renewable energy, agro-tourism, our outside work are needed.
While I remain sceptical about the whole Terre de Liens approach being relevant for Maisons the discussion was a good starting point on outlining some ideas for the future of farming in Maisons.
