French connections 15-16 Oct 2011

France – part 2 of European Nuffield tour

15 October

Harrietts birthday went well with a birthday part ay pizza express and 9 very loud 9 yr olds!....after putting the children to bed I set of for the 2.5hr drive to Folkstone, Kent. Arrived late evening and stayed in a travel lodge overnight.

16 October

Jus son frontier!

Early rise to -2 deg C and having to scrape the ice from the windscreen of the car – first hard autumn frost of the year! Departed for the Eurotunnel and arrived 7.40am only to be waved straight on to an early train departing 8am (not my planned 8.50am). drive straight on, park, listen to the announcements, watch the partition doors close and we are off…32 mins later we are in France!...fantastic service. Depart Calais and immediately you notice how quiet the roads are in France.

I drove for an hour for so and stopped at the ‘Somme’ to look at a graveyard and grap a cup of tea. You get the feeling amongst to undulating open fields that this must have been a terrible place during a battle.  I then drove across the plains of Normandy. Which all looked green and bountiful after recent rains.

From north Normandy through Rouen and on to le Mans was an easy journey on the ‘payage’ toll roads but expensive having spent over £40 on tolls today! Also a little awkward at toll booths in a right hand drive car with the ticket/pay machine on the left…pull up, jump out the car and get ticket etc without trying to piss the Frenchman behind you off too much!

After le Mans travelling south its notable how much drier it became with grass green turning  to brown. Stopped i9n a picnic place for 40 mins fo0r as roadside late lunch and a rest and it was nice to feel the warm sun on my back whilst eating lunch. Travelled further south into the Loire valley and over the Loire rive. Notable to see lots of apple orchards – home of the French golden delicious that put the UK apple industry into massive decline in the 1980’s. also lots of vineyards.

Arrived Beaupereu in good time but the trusty Tom Tom could not locate the address so I phoned my host Yves Gabory. His wife valarie came to meet me and I stayed put at the supermarche car ark. Followed her home to a nice 150yr old  farm house which they are still renovating.

Valarie Gabory and the children entertained me and chuckled at my poor French but we got along fine. Yves was delayed as he was running an agroforestry exhibition at an agricultural show. Yves is the director of the Bocarge on agroforestry one of two national agroforestry associations in france.

Around an evening dinner of roast chicken, potatoes and salads we chatted and exchanged stories and experiences. I think the van rouge sand the Calvados helped as well!!!. Yves & Valarie were so hospitable and made me feel very welcome.

Monday 17^th Oct

Monks, trees and chateau’s

Awoke early to a cold and misty morning. Breakfast with the Gabory’s and an early departure to Yves office to collect a colleague. Yves is a director of the Bocarage agroforestry association of France. There are two associations in france and they don’t always agree on things….The operate x1 extension officer per 7-8 villages, and they for m a network of x100+ officers throughout France.

Yves has mad a submission to Dacian Calios and the EU for inclusion of agroforestry into pillar I of the CAP as well as Pillar II. He has asked me to look over the proposal and give him feedback..

We visited the ‘Abbey Bell Fontaine’ a 80ha organic farm around a monastery. All the food grown is for the monks and a small farm market. The agroforestry is impressive with c.45ha under agroforstry using oak, lime, birch, poplar, Noyer |(black walnut)  etc planted in rows 30-52m apart creating 2.5ha alleys. The farm is in organic conversion (2 yrs) and has been planted to clover and Lucerne as fertility building.

The farm will use the trees for biomass woodchip production and they have an impressive wood chip heating system. The building its housed in has a very clever sliding roof to allow larger tractors/ trucks tip loads etc. The farms agroforestry is overlooked by a magnificent tower.

Some interesting use of over winter green manure mixtures of oats and phacelia.

Late morning I set of on a road trip south east to Poitiers and on to my next host. The journey was easy going but slow at times on a more cross country route but through some large open arable landscapes nr Poitiers. Stopped for some lunch (sandwich) at the town of Chauvignywith an ancient bastile fortified town centre.

Just after lunch I arrived at the farm of Gilles Corou. A fantastic C17 chateau. I was treated to a hot chicken meal with van rouge and we discussed agrofotrestry and also that we had both worked in agricultural development in Africa.

In the afternoon visited the farm and looked at alley cropping of oak, sweet chestnut, peasr, apple, black walnut, elm and cedar.

On part of the farm the agroforestry is interplsanted with alley crops of what/OSR etc but on other areas it is set-aside. With changed regulations he does not see the pressure to cereal crop in between on the poorer soils on the farm.

In another agroforestry plantation the farm has 500 trees with Truffles underneath. ‘black gold’ I think is the correct translation!!!!

I was treated ti an excellent meal of duck, beans, rice, fromsge and of course van rouge!!!!. We talked for a cple of hours on soil biology, Africa, agroforestry and policy….dictionaries Fr:English and visa versa in constant use!!

Tues 17^th Oct

Breakfast with Gilles Corou in the dining room – very grand. A mist and autumnal morning. I departed by 8am for a 2.5hr drive to Les Eduts nr the coast and a visit to Claude Jollet.

Claude is truly the pioneer of agroforestry in France having established his first system between 1970 and 1974 with black wallnut and sweet chestnut. He farms 190ha of land which is split 150ha arable with 40ha under agoforestry trees spaced at 14m row spacings with 12m alleys and 10m between walnut trees. The trees are now very large and very impressive. There is some shading because of the E:W orientation which he admits is not ideal but crop yields are respectable at 8-9t/ha for wheat. In the alleys he operates a roptation of red clover or vetch for 1-2 yrs as green manure then wheat, barley, sunflower. He is nort organic an sprays of the clover with glyposate for crop entry.

The meeting was rather challenging as claude speaks no English and my French is rather shoolboy in nature. However the combination of agricultural language, drawings and google trqanslate in the office won out and we had an enjoyable and informative exchange. Claude like us has limited equipment choosing to use contractors for most work and just owning the specialist equipment – like his self propelled nut harvester which looks like the mother of all pooper scoopers and is a fantastic piece of kit.

Had a wonderful dejinier at a local inn of salad starter, roast pork and veg, crème Brulee coffee and of course van rouge……..but only a bit as lots of driving to do etc.

Wished Claude well and departed south, driving through Cognac and through many vineyards to Bordeaux...even some of the rounderbouts have vines on them...every bit of space used for wine etc....although i guess this is chateau 'Fumes'....!!!!

more soon