A Parisian returns to her roots

“I wasn’t meant to be a farmer,” admits Albane de Warren-Desbois. After 25 years in Paris, where she worked in data­base manage­ment, her father wanted to hand over his busi­ness. Her four siblings were not inter­ested. “I, on the other hand, felt called upon and seized the oppor­tu­nity to start a new chapter in my life.” The connec­tion to nature and the loca­tion, as well as the good layout of the 200ha farm, which is divided into three plots, were the deciding factors. Further­more, the magnif­i­cent 18th-century farm­house with its dove­cote, which has been in the family for 200 years, needed to be preserved.

In 2019, Albane, who had no prior knowl­edge of agri­cul­ture, boldly embarked on the adven­ture with her husband Vincent, an estate agent, and their three young chil­dren. She moved from the lights of Paris to Fontaine-Chaalis, a village with only 350 inhab­i­tants, about 50km from the capital. The city dweller enrolled at an agri­cul­tural college and was fasci­nated to learn about farming and its termi­nology, from ploughshares and soil compaction to nitrogen, phos­phate and potash. She had barely grad­u­ated and turned 40 when she took over the manage­ment of the farm in 2022 and started making big changes.

Disman­tling to rebuild

Albane cancelled the farmers’ union member­ship, sold the machinery and let the staff go. Her motto was to dismantle and then rebuild according to her prior­i­ties. She consulted with neigh­bouring farmers to get an overview of the most impor­tant machinery and prac­tices. In the end, she decided to continue culti­vating and using inor­ganic fertiliser and crop protec­tion prod­ucts, while a conver­sa­tion with the pres­i­dent of the machinery ring Cuma in Peroy-les-Gombries led her to outsource drilling and combining. Without any trailers of her own, she organ­ised grain haulage directly from the field through her Valfrance co-oper­a­tive.

Albane relies on agron­o­mists to plan her crop manage­ment. And she has continued the farm’s previous collab­o­ra­tion with co-oper­a­tives and indus­trial part­ners (Valfrance and Ternoveo for cereals, and Tereos and Saint-Louis Sucre for sugar beet). She has also joined a tech­nical farming centre, which researches and develops agri­cul­tural tech­niques, and offers training courses and infor­ma­tion on modern cultivation methods and tech­nolo­gies. The open knowl­edge exchange with other farmers is partic­u­larly impor­tant to her. She planned her entire orga­ni­za­tion within two weeks – quite a chal­lenge. “The most impor­tant thing for success is to network well,” she says.

A well-organ­ised machine fleet

The dynamic entre­pre­neur also adapted her machinery fleet. She now has a 160hp tractor and another with 120hp, mainly for main­te­nance work. They have replaced the partially owned John Deere 8245R, 7810, 6195R and 7810 trac­tors, which were too big and heavy for her flat land. She added a fertiliser spreader and a 3500-litre mounted sprayer, as well as a five-furrow plough, a culti­vator and a small trailer from neigh­boring farmers. That’s all.

“The agri­cul­tural machinery dealer really listened to what I needed,” she notes. “The John Deere partner, Bouchard, in Ormoy-Villers reacted quickly and got me a used tractor that matched my require­ments, including a turnkey main­te­nance contract.” Albane opted for a one-year-old John Deere 6155 M with 1000 oper­ating hours. She had never driven a tractor before, but finds it fairly easy to use, thanks to the auto­matic and semi-auto­matic speed control. “I like the joystick control, the console and the simple menu, as well as the comfort of the suspended cab.”

She quickly had a few features added, including a hydraulic return for the drill for sowing green covers. Another change was increasing the track width from 180cm to 200cm, to cope with the sugar beet rows, as well as retro­fitting a GPS antenna.

Mum´s tractor

“Today I have a special rela­tion­ship with this tractor, my first,” she says with a laugh, playing with her pink keychain. “I feel safe because every­thing is well thought out and comfort­able, with large windows. And it’s mine.” As a stranger points to the tractor and says: “That’s your father’s tractor,” Mayeul, her five-year-old son replies: “No, that’s mum’s. Daddy drives the small one.” The same applies to the 36-m sprayer. Albane won’t let anyone else work with it. Never­the­less, it took courage to embark on this adven­ture. “I asked a former employee, Pascal, to train me in how to use the machines for a week,” Albane recounts. “I don’t always manage to do the corners of the field perfectly, but I’m getting better at it.”

The main­te­nance manual, an indis­pens­able tool.

The farmer has included sunflowers in her crop rota­tion.

A farmer friend explained the plough settings to her, and Albane doesn’t hesi­tate to ask for help. “Go ahead, the machine is working,” Pascal says when she calls him, concerned about an unknown warning light (the one for filter cleaning). Now she takes the tractor manual with her. And when some­thing does break, like a culti­vator tine, for example, she puts it into perspec­tive and realises that it doesn’t just happen to her. “There are still types of work I don’t like, like attaching the imple­ments,” she admits. “The user-friend­li­ness could be improved there.”

Staying connected and open to the world

But the family is pleased with Albane’s deci­sion to take over the farm. “We all feel a great sense of freedom,” she says happily. Her two youngest chil­dren some­times help in the fields, and her husband is also getting more involved in the agri­cul­tural work. He also supports her by taking care of the chil­dren when she starts work early in the morning.

Every year, Albane and her husband open the farm for various events, like the ‘Concerts in the Court­yard’ festival, the ‘Pein’Art’ artists’ exhi­bi­tion or the Oise parks and gardens flea market. “I take the oppor­tu­nity to share my vision of agri­cul­ture,” she says. “I show my 3.5km of hedgerows which reduce erosion and promote biodi­ver­sity. I point out the partridges, hawks, long-eared owls, swallow nests and perches for birds of prey, which support the natural control of voles.”

She also talks about the battle against weeds. “Some people assume that the spray tank is only filled with pure active ingre­di­ents, without dilu­tion,” she says. She explains her crop rota­tion, which has expanded from three crops (wheat, rape­seed, and sugar beet) to 10. She talks openly about the deci­sions she has made and her humility in the face of nature. “Despite all the diffi­cul­ties, I am improving my skills and results after two years of farming. I learn some­thing new every day, and this is far from over.”