Christian peasants want to move from anger to hope

Towards more consistency

At 67 years old, this committed Christian can draw on his long experience as an agricultural engineer, then as a manager. Although the time when he traveled the deserts of the Middle East to develop huge agricultural projects using intensive irrigation is long gone, the man remembers the realizations he made then, often painful.

Returning to France and becoming director of a cooperative in the agri-food industry, life caught up with him again. “At 42, my wife fell ill with cancer. I felt terribly helpless. » In the depression he was going through, he, who was quite far from religious questions, spoke with a priest who introduced him to farmers from the Christian movement in the rural world. “Faith, experienced through the ordeal alongside my wife, has left a furrow in me. » And a conviction: “The French agricultural model, supported by powerful unions, is on the wrong track. » He joined Adapei, a structure which, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, supports the daily lives of 1,600 people with disabilities, notably managing 1,100 jobs.

With the financial crisis of 2008, a desire for even greater consistency emerged. He acquired a 15-hectare farm to “put local farmers to work and, with the fruits of their work, to feed the people present in collective establishments”. Three central kitchens supplying five community restaurants in the region have since been created. A success that bodes well for the gathering to come.