In Picardie

Location: Thiverval-Grignon, France
Local Time: 5:13PM
Madison Time: 10:13AM

Hello again! I just got back from 5 very intense and productive days filled with interviews throughout the Picardie region. I will write about the trip in a few installments...

Installment #1.

Last time I wrote I was about to pick up the rental car and my translator Jeanne, and begin the interview portion of my trip here in France. After getting very lost in Versailles - which by accident afforded me the chance to see King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's Palace of Versailles - I finally found the train station. I met Jeanne, loaded her bags into the car, and off we went! Our first stop would be, Amiens - home of France's largest gothic cathedral and Jules Verne (author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days).

The almighty Twingo that carried us near and far!

Our first day was spent in the Somme department, in northwestern Picardie. This part of the region has an oceanic climate whereas the eastern part of the region has a more continental climate.

Map of Picardie, comprised of the Somme, Aisne, and Oise departments. For reference, Paris is located in the Ile-de-France. (www.linkparis.com)

My first set of meetings were with the Direction Régionale de l’Alimentation de l’Agriculture et de la Forêt (DRAAF), or the Regional Directorate of Food, Agriculture, and Forestry, where I had a chance to learn about regional agricultural trends as well as the environmental issues and policies that are currently important for Picardie's agricultural sector. This would be the first discussion amongst many in which I would hear about EcoPhyto 2018 - a federal government plan to reduce pesticide use by 50% in the next 8 years in the hopes of improving the quality of environmental resources like water. There is a large amount of energy going into implementing this plan at every scale - national, regional, and departmental - and is an area of active research in many institutions, including INRA-AgroParisTech.

Just being able to have these meetings with government officials highlighted an important difference between France and Russia. I wasn't able to meet with Russian government officials, as they were suspicious and reluctant to share information. The French government officials felt that because they are a public institution, it was important that they be transparent.

In my next meeting, I had the chance to learn about the support services provided by Arvalis - an agency funded by farmers that provides support/extension services to farmers. Arvalis is one of several agencies providing extension services in France. The structure and role of such organizations is very complex in France, but reflects the abundant resources available to farmers here.

Through this meeting, I learned about the stagnation of wheat yields that France has been experiencing over the past two decades - another topic that I would continue to hear about throughout my trip. It has been hypothesized that the stagnation is due, in part, to changes in climate. Hearing this struck me, as it echoed what Russian wheat farmers said - climate is changing, and it is impacting crop production in adverse ways.
 
I finished off the day with my first meeting with a farmer whose main crops include wheat and potatoes - another common crop in the region. This was also the only female farmer that I had the chance to meet with during this trip. It was immediately striking to learn that her wheat yields are generally between 9 and 11 metric tons per hectare - around 3 to 4 times greater than the yields farmers were citing in Russia. Her farm size was typical for the region - around 200 hectares, with field sizes ranging from 10-20 hectares - much smaller than Russia, where individual fields were often bigger than 200 hectares, and farms were often more than 1500 hectares! She was using much more advanced technologies to manage her fields than the farmers that I spoke with in Russia. For example, she subscribes to the FARMSTAR system which utilizes SPOT satellite imagery to produce field-level management recommendations.

Diverse land uses in Somme - animal husbandry in the foreground, field crop and energy production in the background.

Jeanne and I spent the night at the endive farm bed and breakfast. We had a chance to tour the factory in the morning, where we saw the endives growing through a hydroponic system, and packaged for both domestic consumption and export to countries like Spain and Italy. We spent the next day in the Somme and Aisne departments. More on that to come!

A fully developed endive.

And the final product - hot off the press!

Setting out in France

Location: Grignon, France
Local Time: Late at night, as always!
Madison Time: 5:37 PM

The beautiful Chateau at the center of the INRA-AgroParisTech campus in Grignon.

Hello Again! I'm finally back online and getting ready to set out for my field work in northern France. I have spent the last week and a half working with Prof. Thierry Doré and Dr. David Makowski of the Agronomy Department at INRA/AgroParisTech - a joint research institution between France's L'Institut national de la recherche agronomique (National Institute of Agronomic Research) and the university, AgroParisTech. I am extremely grateful for the help of Prof. Doré and Dr. Makowski who are helping arrange my field work here and who have provided me with access to a plethora of interview participants as well as massive amounts of data. I have found myself surrounded by a very supportive community here at INRA-AgroParisTech!

The Agronomy Building.

I also had a chance to meet with Dr. Nathalie de Noblet and other members of the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), where I learned about their extensive work investigating interactions between agricultural and climatic systems.


As discussed in a previous entry, the Picardie region of northern France has a very low yield gap relative to the Southern Federal District in Russia according to the my initial global-scale analysis. I will use interviews with wheat farmers and other experts to investigate the land management practices, policies, and production trends found in the region. I will compare these factors with those of the Southern Federal District to try and understand what aspects of the winter wheat cropping systems might be causing the striking yield gaps observed between the two regions. Finally, after returning to the US, I will compare these wheat cropping systems with those which can be found in Wisconsin.


Since arriving in Grignon, I have been getting acquainted with the Agronomy department and preparing for my next round of interviews. I have also been analyzing census statistics that I will use to complement my interview-based analysis of winter wheat cropping systems - something that I am also doing for the Southern Federal District and Wisconsin. On Wednesday, I kicked off my interview work in France with an agricultural economist and two agronomists.

On Sunday, I will stop by the train station to pick up my trip companion and translator-extraordinaire, Jeanne, and will drive two hours north of Grignon to the Picardie region - the second most important wheat-producing part of France, following Centre. France has 26 regions total, which are broken into departments. I will be conducting interviews in each of the three departments of Picardie: Somme, Aisne, and Oise. Picardie produces about 10% of France's wheat crop, with some of the highest wheat yields in the world. Cereals like wheat cover 720,000 of the 1,300,000 cultivated hectares in the region.

Interestingly, Picardie is also France's leading producer of peas and endives, and Jeanne and I will be spending two nights at a bed and breakfast on an endive farm. More information on endive farming to follow! For now, it's off to bed. Tomorrow I will pick up the car, pack my bags, and get ready to hit the fields! Until next time!

Sunrise out my window overlooking the old farm equipment storage building-turned-cafeteria.

Being a 25 minute train ride from Paris has allowed for some nice weekend excursions! Pictured here, the Louvre.

And of course the token Eiffel Tower picture!