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CNIEL presents "France: dairy country".
Thierry Berthier Dairy farmer in Upper Normandy
Gérard Guyot Dairy farmer in Franche-Comté
In France, one in four farms produces milk.
Dairy farms, which are spread across the regions of France, have remained on a human scale.
We meet two farmers, Thierry from Normandy and Gérard from Franche-Comté.
We are two partners, my brother and I, on a mixed livestock-crop farm.
I look after the herd and my brother the crops. The farm has 85 dairy cows.
The surface area is 155 hectares: 45 hectares for feeding the cows
and the rest for growing the crops we sell.
I took over the farm from my parents about 20 years ago.
The farm is all meadows and dairy cows. We have 30 Montbéliarde cows.
On the farm, I work with Nicole, my wife, who helps me with the farm work,
as do my children when they're out of school during the holidays.
They also help out in the fields.
They also help out in the fields. On our farm, the year is split into two periods. There's the spring-autumn period,
which is when the grass grows and the cows graze.
Then there's the winter period, from 15 November to 1 March,
when we make corn silage.
We farm 75 hectares of grass. In the summer, the cows eat the grass.
During this period we collect hay; i.e. the grass is dried
to feed our cows in the stable during the winter.
"6.30: the start of milking every morning"
Milking takes place twice a day, morning and night, 365 days a year.
So the cows have just finished milking. Now they're going to eat
corn silage, alfafa hay, a little salt to top it off
and then they'll go out to graze for the day. They'll come back this evening
for their next milking session.
Alors chaque jour, le lait est ramassé sur la ferme pour être emmené dans la coopérative
where a cheesemaker transforms the milk into Comté cheese, which will then go to an ageing cellar
to be developed and matured until it's sold.
After milking, the milk is taken to a tank where it's stored for a few days.
A tanker takes it to the processing plant,
where it's made into yoghurt. A sample of milk is taken from the farm at every collection.
After this, the richness of the milk and its bacteriological quality is analysed.
I'm very attached to this way of working and the Comté industry. It's work we do together,
between the farmers, the cheesemaker and the cheese ripener.
My job is above all close to nature and it respects the environment and the wellbeing
of the animals.
Comté is cheese that's made locally with stable jobs in the village,
which enable us to live well from our industry. Isn't that what sustainable development is about?
" FRANCE: DAIRY COUNTRY" WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF THIERRY BERTOT, DAIRY FARMER, UPPER NORMANDY, AND GERARD GUYOT, DAIRY FARMER, FRANCHE-COMTE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED MAKE THIS FILM... TRANSLATION : KATE MOSES