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Reconciling organic agriculture and limited tillage requires a lot of humility and exchange, especially between farmers. Our wish is to be able to share failures as well as successes in order to learn and innovate, and to explore the most sustainable transition paths at the economic, social and environmental levels.

The purpose of the pilot farm is to explore a transition path in a very short period of time and to provide feedback to the HECTAR community: farmers, technicians, researchers, trainers, and students involved in regenerative agriculture issues.

Improving soil health

The primary objective of the pilot farm is to improve soil health. The levers of regenerative agriculture were implemented: 

  • Minimize tillage to increase soil aggregation, water retention and infiltration, and carbon sequestration. 
  • Covered soils to fix nitrogen, increase organic matter, make soils more resilient to drought and flooding, and allow micro-organisms to thrive;
  • Crop rotation and the use of green manures;
  • Reintroduction of grassland and grazing systems to build resilience and increase soil fertility
  • The integration of agroforestry trees to improve the soil's capacity to absorb water.

Dynamic rotational grazing

As part of a strategy that reconciles organic farming and the limitation of tillage, the re-establishment of livestock in a grazing system is essential to bring resilience and increase soil fertility.

A suckling herd allows grazing of intercrops to complement dairy farming. The Normande cattle breed was chosen to constitute the basic stock of the herd. It is a docile breed called mixed because it can produce both a very good quality meat and a rich milk very well adapted to the dairy transformation.

Discover the Godets pilot dairy >
a person petting a cow

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