A link between manufacturers and farmers

Picture

AUTHOR : MAËT LE LAN, Director of the Auray Experimental Station

The Auray experimental station is a key player in the field of market gardening, at the heart of innovation, at the crossroads of players throughout the production chain, from farmers to industry. Maët Le Lan, Site Manager, has been involved in plasticulture for 20 years, and shares her experience and vision with us.

“We are here to take the risks that producers cannot afford to take”

Plasticulture Magazine: To begin with, can you tell us a little about the special characteristics of the Auray resort?

Maët Le Lan: The Auray experimental station, run by the Brittany Regional Chamber of Agriculture, is a site dedicated to research and development in market gardening. Its main mission is to develop better working conditions and experiment with emerging techniques in market gardening, on a 6-hectare farm, including 3,200 m² of covered area, half of which is farmed organically. The fact that we work in both organic and conventional farming is a unique feature of the station and a real plus point!

Our research programmes focus on innovation (robotics and working conditions), soft fruit (strawberries, raspberries and blueberries), alternative crop protection methods and biodegradable materials (mulching and trellising).

Biodegradable products are another of the station’s hallmarks. More than 25 years ago, it was the first station to dare to experiment and work on this theme, under the impetus of the passionate Guy César, the former site manager.

Since then, we’ve gone from strength to strength, thanks in particular to the projects we’ve managed to secure and run. Today, our team is made up of four technicians, a research officer, an assistant and four market-gardening advisers who work around our station. It’s a small structure, but it’s a strength that allows us to be highly responsive: projects are rolled out very quickly, while maintaining the vision of a systems approach at farm level (effects on water consumption, yields, labour, etc.).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

Want to read more?
Full articles starting at €7.80/month

Pay 1€ to read

Get full access to all articles

€7.80/monthly

Our readers also read