Joost and Andy: meeting on a family farm

Andy and his father, Joost, receive me in the family farm: 130 hectares of land scattered in the Walloon region, where chicory root is grown for bulk sale. Starting from a small farm of 1 hectare with his wife, Joost looks back on the evolution of his production, initially a choice that gradually became a necessity. 

The questioning of the foundations of another type of agriculture and the essential place in a project of those who do not espouse a « non-conventional » philosophy in their practice, comes out all the more acutely as the son, Andy, dreams of developing an organic market gardening operation after a year’s training at the CRABE, while working part-time as a farm helper with his father, « completely caught up in the two models » therefore. A meeting between a father and a son, each of whom is the bearer of two different models of agriculture, but whose respective positions, rather than marking differences, raise questions about the means we have to move on. And on the need, perhaps, not to seek to oppose. 

Kairos: Did you originally take over this farm? 

Joost : We took over the farm in 82, buying a small farm with 1 hectare. My wife and I were working elsewhere. I was an electrician, she was a nurse’s aide. I first took over a small milk round, in a form of itinerant trade. Coming from a family of 10 children, I was lucky because my parents are farmers, those of my wife too, so we saw working the land. Although we didn’t know much about it, we always knew where to turn to ask. We started like that, from the direct sale of strawberries and chicory: we planted 20 ares of strawberries, half a hectare of chicory, we concentrated on the direct sale. Then the next year, we had 50 acres of strawberries, and we started leasing land elsewhere to put in chicory so we could have more. That was the starting point, and then we slowly grew to the level we are today. 

K.
Joost : We are not really agriThe chicory root is cultivated on 130 hectares of land, on land rented yearly to owners who are offered a sum of money to free them for a year in order to plant chicory roots, as it is done a lot for potatoes, flax and peas. 

K. K.: And this expansion was necessary … 

Joost : There is always a threshold where there is a necessary profitability, we used to sell directly to the consumer but strawberries were only for a month or two, chicory only in winter… we had a store. Why expand? We were young, we were hungry, our children were there. So we specialized in one culture. 

K. K.: So you stopped direct sales and sold in supermarkets? 

Joost : Yes, at the auction. And there to find the same salary, it was necessary to have three times, four times the surface. 

K. K.: You must have perceived a strong difference between direct sales, with customers who are perhaps more aware, and sales at the fish market, where you go through an intermediary, through the market? 

Joost : We had taken the step of having a cooperative, so we had to provide a standard product that was visually beautiful, kept well and had « marketing significance » which is demanded by the majority of the population. The visual criteria is very important. When we had our store, we sold our product, we could value it differently. A leaf that was a little loose was a leaf that was consumable. In the supermarket, it’s different. We don’t have the satisfaction return on our goods. 

K. K: Did you have an idea from the beginning of how you were going to grow, what products you were going to use? 

Joost : No, when we started we never asked ourselves the question « organic or traditional ». It was traditional. 

K. What do you mean? 

Joost : There is a crop that exists and we apply the techniques that are known, we use the products that are registered for these crops. We never asked ourselves more questions. The most important thing was to have a good product, with taste, marketable. We never asked the question about phytosanitary products or others. We used it wisely and then that was it. 

K. K: Was this use already taking place in your family? 

Joost : Crop protection products, yes.
Andy : When you first start out, you get a consultant who suggests products…

Joost : You have to put yourself in the context : it was the 80’s, we didn’t talk about organic. For us, it was already a huge challenge. 

K. K.: As the question was not asked, the danger of these products was not mentioned? 

Joost : For me, as a matter of principle, if there was an aggregation and the registered doses, we could do it. 

K. And you still think that? 

Joost : (silence) I have a philosophy: my grandparents, my parents were hungry during the war. It is after the war that many phytosanitary products were invented in order to have much higher yields and to have food. It’s true that it’s scary, but if you take all the precautions… 

So I say to myself, make a clean society without phytos products, yes, why not, but at the expense of what? What would we have more or less? We can take the gamble and go the distance, but it won’t be that easy. 

K. K.: When you’re in, isn’t it hard to get out too? 

Joost : Do we want to get out of it? Do we need to get out of it? I don’t ask myself if I should get out of it, because if I tell myself that, the day I’m on my deathbed I’ll have to say « I missed my life »… As soon as we open a bottle of phytosanitary products, we pollute the world… No, it’s not that simple. I think we should trust. 

Andy : You trust the regulations. 

Joost : Yes, as we trust the Belgian law. 

K. It’s interesting, because this trust is also linked to the fact that, in a way, you have to trust them because not to do so would imply a complete questioning, and precisely as you were saying, that is scary. 

Joost : You ask me this question with an undertone: « you have to go to the other side ». It’s not necessary for me at this point, I think. We’ll get there, but gently, and fortunately there are younger generations who are going faster than us. We are settled, we grew up there and we calm our minds by trusting the company. 

Andy : I believe, as he says, that everyone has to make their own way. I don’t believe in the radical posture that says « we have to change everything right away ». Everyone, in relation to the situation in which they find themselves now, must look at themselves and make an effort. At the moment, the structure that my father has created would not allow him to go organic overnight, but on his own scale, he can ask himself what can be done today: « how can I improve my crops »? There has been the establishment here of a biomethanization station, with the root they produce heat and electricity. I also took the list of products he had used, I looked at the active ingredient and we tried to see if there was a product he was using too much or if it was necessary to use a certain quantity. 

Joost : At the beginning, you were talking about an anti-productivist newspaper, is there a link with the question of traditional culture and organic culture? If we do traditional, are we being productive? 

K. Coming from an anti-productivist newspaper, we could quickly be mistaken for people who are against conventional farmers. This is not the case. We are all, in a way, victims of a certain system. 

Joost : I don’t agree with the word « victim ». I’m not a victim, I do the things I choose to do. 

Andy : But they are linked to a context… 

Joost : … and in what I do, there are flaws and it’s not 100% right, and I know there’s a way to go, and the next generation is there, to help us, but being a « victim »… 

K. I think that when you start out as a farmer, there are probably certain practices that are predetermined, you said it yourself: « for me, it was logical », and so there is no need to criticize that. No one could say « he should have done something else ». But after that, one can wonder how difficult it is to say that this logic was not logical. 

Andy : For them, the phytosanitary products come afterwards. The first thing is to cultivate, that’s where the fun is. 

K. K.: Okay, but the question remains: can we do without phytosanitary products, can we cultivate differently? 

Andy : I believe that every farmer can grow without pesticides because there are ways to do it. However, there are still questions that arise, and my one-year training in organic agriculture does not allow me to answer them all: how to grow such and such a thing organically, how to manage such and such a disease… But I am sure that we can grow without it. 

K. K.: And for you, exactly, how did it go? Were you born here? 

Andy : I was born on the farm (laughs).

K. You grew up watching your father work. 

Andy : I grew up in the chicory business. But at the end of my humanities I did not necessarily see myself as a farmer. I studied social work and then two years of anthropology. Agriculture came later with this underlying question: to cultivate, yes, but how? I had the example of my parents, but they still manage a huge structure with workers, 120 hectares, a scale that did not correspond to me. 

K. In what way? 

Andy : It’s my path, it’s a matter of personal feeling. Already as a social worker, especially in internships with the homeless, I felt this lack of connection with the earth. Let’s say that this work of giving meaning, I found it through the work of the earth and food. When, afterwards, I studied anthropology, it was also with this idea of being able to understand the context of the agricultural environment, to perceive the constraints: is the use of pesticides, for example, the farmer’s own choice, or is it influenced by others… I have this need to understand agriculture and this logic of production that my father explained, namely that at the beginning he started with a small production in direct sale but that afterwards, there is something that makes it necessary to always grow a little more. 

K. Are these things that you discuss together, with your father? 

Andy : There has always been a bit of a debate. 

Joost : Maybe the hardest thing between the two of us is this opposition at this level. It’s still a bit difficult, because I used to say to him « come on, you have to move on, get the big machine right away », and he with his philosophy… 

Andy : I look at used equipment, I try to limit the initial investment. 

K. : There is something interesting about this opposition. 

Andy : Yeah, it’s nice. I know people with very radical ideas about conventional agriculture with whom I share ideas but again, living in a farming family, I try to distinguish between people and structures. I try to understand the context, to avoid this tendency to want to go into opposition, which is also a way of defining oneself. There is a tendency to move towards a definition of what one is based on what one is not. 

K. K.: Did Andy manage to convince you? 

Joost : Convincing me that there is a future in organic farming, yes I think so. 

Andy : My question about farming is still whether it’s possible to make a living. From what I have visited, it still seems very difficult. It’s a question that my father often comes up with, it’s this question of profitability: « it’s all very well your project, but will working on these small surfaces be profitable? 

Joost : In the beginning, someone who wants to do organic will have to do 36 vegetables. A man costs 20 euros per hour. You’ve started to move a lot of dirt, but how much do you have to move to make a living? If you don’t know how to perfect anything mechanically, you’ll really need a big plus on your product. The labor force in agriculture is often the one with the lowest wages, because we do not know how to transcribe a labor force in the selling price. We produce a car, the labor costs 100 well we have to sell it 100,05. We are not like that, it’s supply and demand: if it’s sunny, it’s worth nothing, if it rains, it’s worth a lot. Agriculture has never been able to sell its product at a fair price. If we counted on the real price, our products would be much more expensive. 

K. Conventional agriculture is not viable without the use of cheap labor, subsidies… 

Joost : No, it’s not viable. And it’s not our fault. But with mechanization, a single farmer can now cultivate 100 hectares. 

K. At the cost of the disappearance of small structures and debt. 

Joost : Yes, I totally agree, but physically it is possible. On the other hand, in horticulture we are required to have a workforce. 

K. If you were to do it again today? 

Joost : No, I’ll stay like this. Well, I don’t know because the other time I said to you (talking to his son), « you come here and we’ll go organic ». But well, it will remain a large structure but in organic, but it does not go with your philosophy. 

Andy : It’s not the word organic that interests me the most but the philosophy of the small structure, to be able to be master of my product while having a social and economic respect. 

K. What makes the large structure difficult? 

Andy : Yes, but at the same time he tells me « we can start tomorrow with organic ». In my opinion it is possible, but I think it would be very complicated, for example to do without all these pesticides because from the moment a person works on a large scale this kind of products is necessary. It would require a different kind of manpower. 

K. Do you still feel now that need for expansion that we were talking about at the beginning? 

Joost : Yes, once you work with staff, you don’t know any different. It is an obligation. This year, salaries have increased by 4%, which is a good thing. But where does this money come from? My product is not going to sell for 4% more. So either I have to increase my production or I have to work even better. 25,000 euros of salary over the year, I take that out of my salary, I’m on welfare. Go ask the supermarket to sell my chicory for two euros more? Agriculture is a reflection of society. This obligation to expand is seen everywhere. In families too: we go to the sea, then we want to go to Spain, then to America. Mass consumption is all this too. 

And then the land became a sure thing. The stock market has been so bad that there are people outside of agriculture who have started to invest in land. But that means they are buying land for more than it is worth in agriculture. 

K. It increases the price of land? 

Joost : Yes, but it also means that whoever has 15 or 20 hectares and has an opportunity to sell at a good price: why continue? 

Interview by A.P.