Oct 15th Turkey in France???

Christine Drouilhet hosted us today on her pig farm. Christine (French Nuffield Scholar) together with her husband Beneou have a 450 sow piggery and farm 280ha consisting of 200ha of Maze, 60ha of Wheat and 20ha set aside. They use all the grain they produce in the piggery and also buy in extra. Each year they produce 10,000 pigs for domestic markets. Most of their pork meat is used to produce a local sausage that is protected by appellation, providing them with a bonus to the base priced Brittany pork in France. Christine believes that the future of the pork industry in France is bleak, with increasing legislation, declining terms of trade and a declining market. However she believes that if there business maintains good infrastructure, continues to introduce new technology, maintains volume and works hard at there marketing, they will continue to be profitable.

Christine uses a contract feed mixing business to mix the feed ration using most of her own grain for her farm. 

We also visited a free range poultry farm. Antony the owner was a switched on operator, who had taken a run down business he had purchased five years earlier and turned it into a pretty smart operation. Although there is plenty of opportunity for him to introduce labour saving technology Anthony has done a remarkable job in this short time. Situated in the appellation district of Bresse they are able to market their free range chickens, Turkey and Guinnie fowl for a significant premium.

In between visits we enjoyed some Bresse chicken for lunch (Which the district is famous for) The drum sticks were pretty big, but after eating one I wasn't expecting to see a chicken this size!