Motivated by passion: Ferme La Tour

 Traditional farming is romanticized by most of us city folk.  As we dreamily pick our way through the produce at our local farmer's market, we have blurred, soft-lit images of the perfection of rural life and living off the bounty of the land.  Anyone who's spent any amount of time on a farm knows the truth: agriculture is a tough life, and requires a tremendous amount of creativity and passion particularly when working outside the industrial model.  Furthermore, farms stink.  Literally.  I may love vegetable gardens, but watching and smelling Puglian cows relieve themselves all over each other in June made me respect farmers even more.  Or their cast-iron noses.  So there was some bracing on my part for our day two farm visits.

Ferme La Tour in Richonnier was a pleasant surprise.  Francois and Vivianne left their urban careers in 1997 to start a goat fromagerie.  While Francois originally came from a family of dairy farmers, Vivianne had absolutely no farm experience.  However, she pursued a diploma in agriculture, applied and received start-up grants, apprenticed for three months with a cheesemaker and dove right in.  In fact, the farm is in her name and her husband jokingly calls her his patronne, or boss.  Clearly though, this is a team effort.

230 animals in one place could cause some worrisome aromatics, but there were only clean and happy goats to be found at this farm.  They nipped at Francois' arm, begging for attention until he scratched their ears or playfully cuffed them when they became too inquisitive of our cameras and notepads.  Each goat produces around 700 litres of milk per year, and it takes about 10 litres of milk to produce a 1 kg round of chevre. 

What happens when too many people writing a paper
on France are trying to take pictures with flash
at the same time - devil goat!

While the farm is mechanized in many ways, from milking to ear tagging to keep track of their ages, there is clearly a tremendous amount of hands-on love and care that goes into their animals and cheese.  And the passion for farming transcends generations: their daughter is studying agriculture as well.

As for their cheese?  Magnifique.