On avait tous un paysan dans la famille
Two hundred farms disappear every week in France. Historically at the heart of agricultural life, most of the farms that line the roads of our countryside are now converted into single-family dwellings. In the villages, farmers are still driving around on their tractors, but their number is decreasing every year. In this photographic series “We All Had a Farmer in the Family” I wanted to document this endangered way of life. I wanted to understand the century-old transmission of the farm from generation to generation, which is now threatened. Their unique stories speak of the transformation of a changing agricultural world.
Illies, 21st April, 2021."It's a race for land; you have to keep expanding to be profitable," says Marcel, a retired farmer who is happy to see his two sons take over. Like every evening, Marcel checks that everything is going well in the barn.
Bucquoy, Pas-de-Calais, August 26, 2020.
Engineer, nothing predisposed Anne to run a farm. In 2002, she took over the reins of her family-in-law's 140-hectare mixed farm and became one of the few female farm managers in the region. In France, 27% of farm managers are women compared to 8% in 1970.
Illies, North, March 6, 2021. Snack time with Odette, a 78 year old retired farmer, in the farm kitchen. Her son, Bruno, has taken over the family land that they owned. But it is not enough for him to live on. He is double-active; he works two days a week as a deliveryman.
Cajarc, Occitania, August 10, 2020. Charles drives the tractor and continues to help his son who has taken over the farm.He remembers when the farm population began to decline. The land freed up by the departure of older farmers without succession was more often used to expand existing farms than to launch young farmers outside the family framework .
Hoerdt, Bas-Rhin, August 5, 2020.
Portrait of Jean-Jacques, retired farmer whose grandson Manu has taken over the farm. "The paradox is that while our production has increased tenfold, our profitability per hectare has drastically decreased with the drop in real prices," says Manu, farmer, who runs a business with 10 employees and lives next door to his grandfather.
La Bassée, 8 may, 2021.
Pierre, a farmer, lifts a bale of hay with his pitchfork. While Pierre is employed on another farm, Jean-François, his older brother, has already taken over part of the family land. Pierre helps his brother during his free time. For them, no holidays. The two brothers support each other, united by the links of land and work.
Hoerdt, Bas-Rhin, 5 August, 2020.
"I admire and am very proud of the young generation of women farmers. They often turn to organic farming and want to take their place in society," explains Babeth. Daughter of farmers and without an agricultural diploma, Babeth decided to take over the farm in 1980. She was therefore not eligible for installation aid. However, she started breeding, growing daffodils and small fruits; activities that do not fall within the scope of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Lohitzun Oyhercq, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, June 29, 2020. "It was impossible for me to let the farm go under," says Jessica, a Jersey cow farmer. The milk crisis in 2008 forced her to transform the farm's activity. Her father owned Prim'holstein cows, with an exclusive sales contract to a cooperative dairy.
Torcy, Pas-de-Calais, March 22, 2021.
"In the past, a farm was passed down from father to son. My dad wanted to be a notary but he took over the family farm," says Gérard, a retired farmer. He is the grandfather of Aymeric who decided to become a farmer. None of his four children wanted to become a farmer.
Illies, December 11, 2020.
"The city is eating the land more and more," says Jean-François, a farmer. He is worried about the disappearance of farmland. In France, agricultural land has been decreasing for several decades. It now represents about half of the national territory ; 28 million hectares, compared to nearly 35 million hectares in 1960.