A Doctoral Student Blog

As an inhabitant from Brittany, Wales and the UK have always been only hours away and farming is one of the connecting forces between the two shores of the Channel. Farming is prominent in Brittany and is considered as an industry (as it is in Wales); this and my combined interest in life sciences and human sciences triggered me to try to study at AgroParisTech. After 2 years of post-secondary intensive coursework (Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology and Geography) in Paris at the institute I specialised in Agronomy, Economics, Agricultural Development and Agricultural Policy.

I enjoyed my 4 years at AgroParisTech where I graduated with a Master’s degree as I had a variety of experiences (partly abroad) that helped me understand how varied farming was, how the history of an area shaped out different patterns and farming types and relations with their surroundings: for example, the French revolution that still explains a lot of differences between farming in France and in the UK.

I focused on temperate and Western Europe by doing some extensive classwork in Normandy and in Cantal on the CAP and most lately in the UK. Farming types I studied range from dairy farming, cattle production to wine making or crops. I studied different agricultural policy and agricultural history and economics in the wider world, for example the USA and some developing countries like the Burundi.

I love travelling though I now restrain myself to limit my greenhouses gases emissions. I learned lots from my extensive stays abroad during a research assistant position in Australia and an exchange semester in Argentina where I was immersed into the country and I really had the opportunity to carve out my own reflection on what I saw.

• During my research assistant position in Australia at the CSIRO I was working with the Food Systems and Global Change very much focused on developing countries and was trying at a global level to find out how to get to a more sustainable agriculture. This was an eye opening experience.
• In Argentina I was studying at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in applied farming sciences. 

Those two experiences gave me a unique opportunity to travel and understand each country, its culture, its polocies and its agriculture... I shall do a post about it one day!

In 2019 as part of my master's degreeI spent 6 month in Wales studying a small agricultural area, South Pembrokeshire through the scope of the agrarian diagnosis. A unique immersion experience with a lot of fieldwork and 90 interviews with farmers and stakeholders to understand the farming landscape and modelize it.

The time I spent immersed in the welsh culture is very key to connecting to what people experience. But on the other side of the coin an outsider to the communities that I will meet might prove a real plus, offering a different point of view, potentially valuable for the next rural policies to be deployed in Wales. I feel that this system-based approach doesn't exist at the farming, environment and rural communities scale today.

I felt that to achieve the drive towards a more sustainable agriculture, agricultural policy and economics from a system based approach are tools that can play a greater role. This transition is for me not only about environment but also about economy, rural societies and nutrition aspects.

Will agro-environmental schemes and payments be good enough to help us out of the current crisis?

My recent position as a research assitant in the CCRI makes me wonder how far they can stretch and how helpful they are.

My research is still focusing on farm evolution but this time in the light of the ongoing changes to the policy and economic landscape and at a country wise scale - Wales.

To study this subject, I am implementing the French method I am familiar with; called “Agrarian Diagnosis” from the 'comparative agriculture field', which is a fieldwork-based approach to farming research.