Both engineers in the Oise region, Maddly and Julien decided to change their lives: they headed for the Dordogne to take over the family farm and set up a local dairy sheep and pig farm. Following the Hectar Tremplin program, they agreed to give us their impressions and share with us the details of their project and its evolution.
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Who are you?
Maddly: I'm Maddly, I'm 30 years old, I'm from the Dordogne and I'm currently a research and development engineer in a glass bottle manufacturing company in the Oise region.
Julien: My name's Julien, I'm 31, from the Oise region, and I work for the same company as Maddly, but in electrical maintenance and automation.
What's your project?
Maddly: We had the opportunity to buy my grandparents' farm, which had been closed for some fifteen years. They used to raise Limousin cows. We wanted to change our lives, so we seized the opportunity to build a dairy ewe farm with on-farm milk processing, as well as a free-range pig farm, using a local breed known as the cul noir pig.
What made you want to change your life?
Julien: We wanted to change jobs and above all give meaning to what we were doing. To have a reason to get up in the morning, and tell ourselves that our work corresponds to our values, to what we like and what we want to do.
Why did you decide to do Tremplin?
Julien: Before Tremplin, we did a BPREA with NaturaPôle, which told us about Hectar. We're not on the farm yet, and the organization that's going to help us set up doesn't want to start supporting us until we're there. So we decided to do Tremplin to start thinking about the project in advance, so that it would be secure and solid once we were in the Dordogne. This will enable us to devote more time to operational matters and getting the farm up and running.
What obstacles did you encounter in your project and how did Hectar help you overcome them?
Maddly: As we're well upstream of the project, we haven't had too many difficulties... so far! We don't come from the agricultural sector, and Hectar has helped us to make the project professional and concrete. We were able to step back and anticipate, which is important. It's an agricultural entrepreneurial expertise that doesn't exist elsewhere, and it's been very beneficial for the creation and long-term vision of our brand, for setting objectives with low and high limits...
When you joined Hectar, what did you expect from the Springboard program?
Julien: When we arrived at Hectar, we had a lot of questions. We'd reached a stage where we wanted to move forward but didn't really know how.
Maddly: And to make it concrete too! Because we had ideas but not necessarily the figures in our heads to make them viable.
Julien: Yes, we had based the project on estimates, but without any professional analysis behind them. With our mentors, we were able to talk concretely about data that we hadn't mastered at the outset in terms of economics, yield, legal and tax issues, and that helped us get closer to reality... We were able to see things more clearly thanks to the support we received, so that we could move forward with the project.
What are your plans for the future?
Julien: When we applied to Tremplin we had already bought the farm, but for the moment the land is still rented, we still live in the Oise region and we still work in the glass industry. Our aim is to move at the end of 2023 and to set up in January 2025, to give ourselves time on site to set up our project with our support organization and local players, continue to learn about the technique, do internships, visit neighboring farms... With Hectar we've clearly defined the basis of our business plan and our investments, which we'll need to consolidate once we're on site.
Thanks to Sycomore Asset Management and Aigle for supporting the Tremplin program.
