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It (re)gives a taste for eating well!

Maxime Leroy
Farmer
Credit Ludovic Broquart

A graduate of the ISA (Higher Institute of Agriculture of Lille), specializing in the environment, Maxime Leroy ventured for a while into the world of multinationals, living in Lille and Creil. Then he returned to where he could contribute, effectively, to transforming our ways of life: on the land of Artois in Haisnes. At the head of a farm that employs 13 people, he makes the most of the 70 hectares of land he cultivates in strict compliance with the principles of organic farming.

In 2018, Maxime's desire to act and undertake meets, through an Internet search engine, the desire to transmit from Michel and Chantal Huchette, pioneers of organic farming specializing in endive. The transition was smooth. “The first year, we did everything together. It was necessary, I was aware of it, that I discover everything, that I learn the integral cycle of production. »

Organic chicory is still at the heart of the business today. A form of diversification allows Maxime to offer for sale, via the Phalempin cooperative, onions, potatoes, sugar beets, wheat, corn, alfalfa and Triticale, a mixture of wheat and of barley intended for animal feed… all 100% naturally organic.

Convinced but not obtuse

Maxime hears, for his part, the benefits and the necessity of organic. However, he refuses to oppose agriculture. Conventional or organic, each responds to needs and it is essential to perceive their complementarity and to insist on the passion that drives farmers, in all cases. "It's a job that makes sense. We feed the population. Maxime, for his part, like many farmers, responded with the courage and self-sacrifice needed to run the farm, guarantee its production, preservation and viability.

He and the thirty farmers who make up and share the use of CUMA "La Verloossoise" (Vermelles) machinery have chosen a profession that they know is difficult, but whose permanence has no equal. than the prospects for development.

Business future

And the story is far from over, projects abound: market gardening, farm-school… Maxime defines himself as a business manager, farmer and perhaps, even more so, as a peasant. In this word there is "country". We also see the landscape. “It is first of all him that we cultivate, that we maintain. »

As soon as we approach the eco-transition of which he is one of the leading players, he refuses the idea of ​​overproduction. The problem is rather in the field of distribution. “Why do consumers no longer accept a misshapen product? There is a real educational issue here. And then there should be fewer people in the offices, more people in the field. Between the words we can read the aspiration to return to manual work, very present in his exploitation. From his lands in Artois, Maxime has undertaken organic farming, no more and no less than his life project.

Endive as a symbol

On the sidelines of our interview, Maxime reminds us that endive is an emblematic product of the region.
He remembers with respect Michel Huchette explaining, as soon as the opportunity is offered to him,
how the endive, its culture, saved many farms and existences when the mines
have closed. The notion of eco-transition did not yet exist. Yet was it something else?

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