Book of Abstracts
11th IFOAM
Scientific Conference
11-15 August 1996
Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract front page
Subject index
Athor index

Symposia

Conversion in Britany S22

Egmont-Florian, Dominique van1; Keilling, Jean2,

1)Institut pour la Recherche et lApplication en Agriculture Biologique, Ferme Expérimentale, 84870 Carpentras, 2)I.R.A.A.B., 75006 Paris

See also:
News from:
Organic.dk

To regain the quality of a water, which is at present no longer consumable, over a 95,000 a. wide territory of three catchment basins on which 800 farms practise intensive breeding along conventional agricultural lines (dairy herd- and under cover pig and poultry rearing farms)

Such is the goal pursued by an eminent political personality, a representative of the Region, who consequently decides to win the entire territory for bio practices and thus turn the experiment into a pilot scheme.

The project is extremely ambitious, since - for the very first time, according to us - its aim is to convert to organic farming not determined farmers but an entire agricultural territory; thus bio practices will spread gradually and producers will turn to them, more or less willingly.

The scheme is audacious as well, since it involves farmers whose practices are the farthest from biological ones and who do not turn to organic farming from their own free will. Finally, the project also intends to reconstitute an entire locality with its rural tissue, destroyed by the intensive agricultural practice of industrial production. With this outlook in mind, he intends to recreate the environment cottage industry needs for its growth and the complete socio-economic and human environment required for a return to full-employment and a high quality of life for everyone.

However urgent the conversion to new agricultural practices is, it should not be obtained under constraint. Therefore a vast programme has been launched with incentives of all kinds, particularly financial ones, above all including information and training schemes for the farmers concerned.

The project in hand is a global one, combining all the dimensions and complexity of a programme of town and country planning.We regard it as a model one, owing to its very originality and vastness.