the story of three generations - agriculture

8/20/2019 The Story of Three Generations - Agriculture

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Agriculture and

Rural Development

The story of

three generationsof farmers


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Luxembourg : Publications Office of the European Union, 2014

ISBN 978-92-79-37316-9doi:10.2762/24065

Illustrations: Mi Ran Collin

© European Union, 2014Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

Printed in Belgium

Printed on recycled paper


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The family is fictional, but their story could be that of countless farming families across Europe.

The story of

three generationsof farmers

All families have stories. This is ours. It covers the last 50 years – hard times to start with, but better now. Farmers were almost a dying

breed. Europe came to our rescue. The EU gave us incentives and provided a financial safety net. But we have earned every cent we’ve

made down the years, often the hard way. If you’re not smart, or not prepared to make the effort or take the risk, you can still fail.

On this farm everybody works – even the cat has a job to do as mouse-catcher.


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Grandfather’s story – the first generation

My name is Jean. I was born into a farming family in Normandy between

the two world wars. We’ve had the farm for generations. We’re still

there but my daughter and grandson run it now. The people I grew up

with all worked on the land. Our village was our life. A lot more people

lived in the countryside than nowadays.

The war was sheer hell. I

began running the farm

shortly after it ended.

Almost everything was

rationed. People did not

have enough food; we

farmers couldn’t produce

what they needed. We

just had a small farm

with dairy cows, pigs and

some chickens. We were

poor, the work was back-breaking and the future

looked bleak.


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Then in the 1960s things started to

improve. The EU provided subsidies and

a guaranteed price for what we produced.

We bought a tractor and trailer so that we

could work faster; we produced more with

every harvest. But there were few long-

term prospects here for youngsters. All

around us, young people were abandoningthe countryside in search of a better life

in the cities.


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It didn’t always work out for them. This was the ‘60s – the

hippie era – with drugs and rock and all the rest. Youngsters

spent their money as fast as they made it. Some did OK: they

now have big houses and big cars. Others just went under. Very

few chose to come back here.

We were caught in a bind. The farm was doing better thanks to the help from

the EU. With new machines we were able to do more with less effort. We took

a calculated risk by bringing in new technology ahead of all our neighbours.

We could now live modestly but securely, on our income. My wife Marie and I

took our very first holiday. But our children began asking us questions about

their future. As more young people left the farms and villages, their world

seemed to be full of older folks like us, and children, with no-one in between.

They too were looking towards the city.


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We helped our three children make up their own minds. There wasn’t enoughland for everyone to farm, and breaking it up made no sense either. The

two boys went to the city – one became an electronics engineer, the other

a metro driver. As they had good jobs they stayed there. But our daughter

Amelie loved the countryside. She went to the agricultural college to learn

about new techniques, crop varieties, animal breeds and farm management.

In the 1970s, we farmers ran into big trouble. We were

producing enough food for everybody – in fact more than

enough. The result was bigger and bigger surpluses, costingEU taxpayers vast amounts to store and sell off. In 1984,

the CAP brought in the first production limits. Others were

to follow.


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It was about this time that my wife and I retired to a cottage in the village. I didn’t feel ready

to retire. But the new challenges needed a new generation. It was going to be harder to make a

living. Should we invest in new technology? Should we rent land from neighbours to boost output?

What animals or crops offered the best prospects? These were decisions for Amelie. I was ready

with advice. But Amelie has a mind of her own – and she has the vision and the determination

to make things happen. I knew she would manage, and she did.


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Amelie’s story

In the beginning, it was hard for some people to accept that I was the

farmer, and not just a farmer’s wife. As soon as I took over the farm, I could

sense that big changes were inevitable. We needed to be more careful

about using natural resources and protecting the environment. Consumer

tastes were changing too. We quickly responded by concentrating more

on the local specialities and the organic food that people seemed to like.

Within a couple of years I married Paul who now runs the farm with me.

Another change concerned biodiversity. The numbers of birds, bees,

other insects and plants have been falling. I understood that keeping

small natural areas around our fields helps bring them back. The

countryside belongs to everyone. Some children have never seen

real farm animals and wildlife except on television. For me, that’s

hard to imagine. Rural areas should be the natural place for city

dwellers to come for recreation and relaxation. It’s all here for them

and their children to enjoy.


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Farming is not a bed of roses. If you keep animals problems can arise. One year our cattle contracted foot and mouth disease –

a farmer’s nightmare. Of course we got the vet to treat them. But it’s not as simple as that. We were banned from moving animals

off the farm, to stop the disease from spreading. We couldn’t sell any animals or dairy products. This cost us a lot of money, but the

EU helped pay for some of the extra costs, and compensated us for part of the loss. We would have been out of business without

this help.


12/2010

As you can imagine I became even more committed to using resources

more carefully, particularly water and the soil, and applying more natural

production methods – keeping animals out in the open as much as possible

and using chemical fertilisers and pesticides as little as possible. But running

a farm successfully means staying ahead of the curve. We rented land from

neighbours. We started keeping sheep to give us an alternative means of

income. I started organising school visits for children.


13/2011

Another initiative was to process and packagemore of our products on the farm, selling directly

on the local market or to local shops. We were

not short of customers. I liked to take our farm

products (such as milk, butter, ice cream) to the

market and meet consumers. This way we earned

more for ourselves, instead of selling unprocessed

products at low prices to food manufacturers

and distributors. We could offer part-time jobs

to several villagers and help the local economy.

This was our contribution to slowing the rural

exodus, and securing a future living right here for

our children, if they wanted it. Our son Vincent

certainly did.

Politicians and governments now realise the

importance of farmers and farming for the future of

rural communities. As part of our work is to take care

of the environment and natural resources, it’s only

fair that we get paid for it. The EU pays us because

no-one else will. We can’t do this work for nothing. Yet

it has to be done if we want (as I do) to maintain our

countryside as part of our common heritage.


14/2012

New horizons

Hi, I’m Vincent, the son of Amelie and Paul. I work with my parents and lecture part-

time at the agricultural college. That’s where I met my wife, Ewa. She was an exchange

student from Poland. She’s from a family farm too. Farming in central or eastern

Europe is still not easy. People have been leaving rural areas in droves. For those

who stayed, much has changed. All those EU rules were baffling at first, even if they

brought changes for the better. Few farmers thought of themselves as businessmen.

They just worked hard and trusted the weather would deliver a good harvest.

Ewa and I spend some of our time in France, but most

of it in Poland. We are trying to learn from each other

and use the mixed background to grow our business. In

France our activities have developed. Farm tourism is on themarch. City folk are buying up farmhouses and barns and

are renovating them as second residences. It’s giving our

region a new lease of life and generating extra jobs to boot.


15/2013

In Poland there were lots of opportunities to be followed up, especially when subsidies

from Brussels began. We converted one of the buildings into a farm cottage that we

rent out to tourists. Want to visit? Bring some friends; rock, soul and heavy metal

performers in the barn every other weekend.


16/2014

But life is not easy in either France or Poland. The world we live in is different from my grandfather’s. He faced his

challenges and we face ours. These include stiffer requirements for quality and safety and animal welfare. One

of our biggest challenges is climate change with more extremes of droughts and floods. My mother-in-law was

nearly drowned when the nearby river burst its banks two years ago. They lost most of their harvest and half of

the livestock. And they were not insured. Now they know better.

Where we can, we fight climate

change. Where we cannot, we adapt

to it. We took out an insurance policy

against crop damage. We help cutcarbon emissions too. Our wind

turbines generate clean electricity

and we turn farm waste into low

carbon biogas as an alternative to

diesel fuel.


17/2015

Ewa and I look at our children and worry about the future – but

our worries are those of every parent: how will our children make

their way through the tough and complex world we live in? We

have been able to provide a secure future for them here in the

countryside. But will they stay? We hope they will.

Here on the farm, we’re

as high tech as anybody.

We use GPS, cell-phonesand other mobile devices,

for anything from weather

forecasts, monitoring market

prices, checking the delivery

of supplies to mapping the

farm. The village is full of

life. We have cafés at both

our farms. We host weddings

and business functions in

converted buildings. In France

we do a sideline in children’s

parties at weekends. The

closed inner yard makes the

farm look like a castle, and wehire out costumes and provide

medieval banquets.


18/2016

So in 2012 the wheel has turned full circle. Like my grandfather 50 years ago, we help feed people across Europe

and beyond. But nowadays we do a lot more besides – taking care of the environment, managing the limited natural

resources we have and keeping abreast of the latest technological developments. I’ve also got involved in helping the

local community. But our main income still comes from farming.

I am happy that I have my family around me after all these years, and proud that we are still farming. It was, and still is, a tough life, but

it is a rewarding one. People will always need food, so they will always need farmers. In times of economic and financial turbulence we

still have our land. And the land will always work with us to give us the food we need, provided we take care of it. Now it is for the young

to write the next chapter in the story that binds us to our land.


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K F - 0 4 -1 4 - 3 9 4 -E N - C

European Commission

Directorate-General Agriculture and Rural Development

The family is fictional, but their story could be that of countlessfarming families across Europe.

the story of three generations - agriculture

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