Gers: Noémie Calais, a neo-rural who went from dream to revolt
Noémie Calais, after her studies at Science-Po, chose to become a pig farmer in the Gers. His experience is the subject of a book, rather nurturing, a real x-ray of an exasperated rural world.
Noémie Calais arrived by chance in the Gers as in agriculture. The young woman, originally from Calais, came out of Science-Po Paris. Having worked in the offices of social and environmental investment funds in Hong Kong, then in London for Europe, Noémie Calais discovered that she was electrosensitive. “I had to admit that I couldn’t work in front of the screen anymore. I returned to France to go green, with the idea of adopting teleworking. »
She tries the experience of woofing, this voluntary aid to farmers, and it is a revelation. She enrolled in the Mirande agricultural high school and came out of it with the sesame: the BPREA, or professional diploma in charge of agricultural business. “I had the project of continuing to work in an intellectual field, consulting but in the countryside. And there I put my hands in the ground, it was a real reconnection with nature, and with dreams that I had as a child. I wanted to become a zoo director or work in a restaurant: here I am a breeder! »
Choice assumed
This love of life, Noémie Calais has seen improved in her breeding of black pigs and chickens in Montégut since 2018. Because the Gers has won her over, through the human dynamics of its agricultural world and its proximity to the mountains and coasts, and because she works there according to her wishes. Provide healthy food, respectful of the consumer as much as of the animal. “In the Gers, culture joins the sharing of food, analyzes the young farmer. On famous products, on kitchens, all that speaks to me. »
Initially, Noémie Calais, who assumes her neo-rural status, experiences setbacks. The apprenticeship is sometimes painful, the job pays badly, but she hangs on. “Women pig farmers and butchers, you don’t find too many of them in the South West! Alone, she takes care of everything, from birth to cutting and sale. She loves her animals and likes to eat. “It’s a question of relationship and respect, to the animal and to death. There is a third way between veganism and what L114 denounces! »
In 2021, Clément Osé, a former classmate at Science-Po, also returned to the earth, offers him to write a book, Rather feed, on his experience. At first skeptical, Noémie Calais accepts.
Revolt
“That’s when there were a lot of changes… Raw material costs skyrocketing, farmers having to go out of business because they couldn’t come up to standards with avian flu”. Sanitary obligations to enclose poultry, biosanitary measures, are for Noémie Calais, so many prohibitions to practice her profession with respect for animal well-being and food quality. The young breeder enters into a struggle, a battle against the measures. “It was a real injustice to see measures imposed on free-range breeders to save the export sector! »
A revolt which is reflected in the pages of rather feed, and which has not left Noémie Calais. “We are faced with regulations totally disconnected from the reality of farmers! So, despite the support of our consumers in the markets, what’s the point? She fears to see health measures extended soon to pig farms. “I chose to reduce my herd. Should we continue? Working so hard to barely make a living? The farmer is now considering going into the kitchen. “I love promoting farm products, my own or those of others. Create times to feed people, but accessible, for locals. I could sell my black pig in Paris, much more expensive. But I would have the impression of extracting the terroir, it would not be ethical! »
Noémie Calais hopes that this book “will talk about our daily life, our profession, what it is to work the land and the animal today. And of the neorural condition. Arriving with her dreams, Noémie Calais had to face an opponent more difficult to defeat than fatigue and working hours: bureaucracy. “We are not prepared for it,” she says. It’s maddening to fill in files that are so complex, never finished…” This voice and this experience, Noémie Calais has made it heard on numerous radio stations since the publication of Rather feed. “We are 1.5% of the active population, and we feed all the others. Who talks about it? But can we do without talking about it? »