Nicolas Teyssedou seems at first your prototypical farmer—serious and a man of few words. But then you get the 25-year-old owner of La P’tite Ferme (the small farm) outside the town of Caussade in Southern France, talking about raw milk, and before long he’s expounding on theories of philosophy and chemistry.
Nicolas, like the owners of a growing number of American farms, is trying to make farming work by going back to traditional production and growing practices, such as raising his cows on pasture. Also like more American farmers, he is selling directly to consumers, from his farm and at farmers markets.
I had the good fortune of spending some time with Nicolas because my cousin, Lynn Gumpert, who lives part-time in this area of France (the rest of the time in New York), had met him at a farmers market and come to treasure his hand-made yogurts, cheeses, and flans. But she didn’t really know much about his farming philosophy and experiences, so we decided to pay him a visit on Wednesday afternoon. Fortunately also, Lynn translated.
The first thing I noticed driving up the dirt road to his farm was his twenty cows grazing peacefully on an expansive pasture. He greets customers in a small store (pictured above) that looks like a cheese shop, displaying his products in refrigerated cases.
He answered my questions tersely at first, but when I told him I have a site on the Internet about health and nutrition, he graciously gave me a tour of his refrigerated production shed, where he carefully mixes batches of raw-milk cheese and flan (coffee, caramel, and chocolate flavors), along with plain and fruit yogurts. The cheeses, depending on variety, are heated to between 15 and 42 degrees Celsius, the latter being the highest temperature possible while still avoiding pasteurization.
The yogurt is made from milk he must pasteurize in order to conform with national regulations stipulating which bacteria can and can’t be present in the final product.
The product that gives him "the most problems," he says, is the one requiring the least amount of preparation—you guessed it: the raw milk.
There the regulations seem to become tighter and tighter as time goes on. So while raw milk can technically be sold in stores, in practice that is nearly impossible, since the milk must be sold within three days of having been produced; pasteurized milk expiration periods are much more flexible. Thus, Nicolas is limited to selling his raw milk directly from the farm or at farmers markets.
In addition, as a raw milk seller, Nicolas must annually produce proof that he has had his cows vaccinated for major diseases. And the government seems to be stipulating ever more regulations concerning cleanliness—use of plastic gloves and paper hats by milkers and cleaning of cows before and after milking.
As he described the restrictions, one thing that stood out to me is that the regulations, based on his account, seem to be consistently applied, across the country.
While Nicolas’ sales of raw milk are growing, he laments that they aren’t growing as fast as sales of his cheese, flan, and yogurt. "Ideally, I would like for people to buy raw milk and make their own cheese and flan. But people are cooking less and less, so I have to make these products for them."
He finds older people, who can remember having consumed raw milk in their youth, most interested in the product now. Younger people object sometimes to the fact that the milk has a fuller taste than the pasteurized stuff they are used to. To me, the milk tasted great, nearly sweet, though not quite as rich as the milk I am accustomed to from New Hampshire.
Nicolas says he transformed his parent’s farming operations a year ago based on his studies of agriculture in high school and two years of college, during which he became disillusioned by traditional farming and food processing methods. He bemoans especially that milk products are separated for cream, protein, skim milk, and sugars. Then they are re-constituted for mass-produced yogurt, ice cream, and other such products. The same kind of separation and re-constituting happens throughout the food production system, he says, and in his opinion underlies growing problems with chronic disease and obesity in Europe and the U.S. Sound familiar?
When I ask Nicolas if he envisions his focus on raw-milk products and direct-to-consumer approach being more profitable than the traditional farming methods his family used before he took over operations a year ago, he shakes his head. "I am doing what makes sense ecologically and naturally."
He says his production costs are actually lower than using traditional approaches. "I produce half of what they (conventional farmers) produce, but I have much higher quality products. And my costs are much lower. Grass feeding is one-third the cost of grain feeding."
But more important is the underlying philosophy he has adopted to guide his approach to farming: "Nothing is added, nothing is lost, but everything is transformed."
Most farming involves adding and taking things away, he says; thus, when chemical fertilizer is added to soil, under this philosophy, "It means some things are not working as hard." Nutrients and beneficial chemical reactions are lost.
For now, he is one of just a handful of farmers around France committed to pasture feeding, and one of an even smaller number committed to raw milk production; he estimates there are four or five pasture-based farms in his "department" (like a county), and one other raw milk producer. In some departments, there aren’t any raw milk producers.
All of which launches him into a lament that corn feeding is government subsidized, while grass isn’t. He’s also discontinued labeling his products "biologique" (organic) because he has to pay more than $1,000 annually in fees and fill out special forms. Moreover, he feels consumers, at least in his area of France, associate organic with higher prices, which makes them less likely to purchase his products.
One of his goals is to get more visitors to his farm, "so people can see that the cows are eating grass." Education, he feels, is his most advantageous long-term advantage.
***
Overheard in an outdoor cafe in the main square of a tiny tourist town in southern France:
British tourist, after consuming a couple beers and just prior to getting back onto his tour bus, to his waiter: "So, how long you here for, chap?"
Waiter, with a sigh: "I live here."
Recent Comments