Agrinovent #2 Maraichage sol vivant et autoconstruction dune maison en bottes de paille

We are Hubert and Léa, this year we chose to go for a walk special with our bikes and our boat. Our goal is to go and meet farmers looking for autonomy. Our Agrinovent project aims to objective to highlight the peasant know-how. New stopover, here we are at La Turballe, this city is well known for its port fishing. It is located north of the Guérande peninsula La Turballe is salt marshes, salt marshes, and still salt marshes but also livestock, market gardening and many other activities.

00:41 - Here, in organic market gardening, we met Yves Loïc, Sylvain and Diana in their little corner of paradise: it is the gardens of Kerpondarmes. In the farm they based on two principles and Yves Loïc will explain them to us. It is market gardening living soil and non-mechanization. Yves Loïc settled in this magical place in different stages. First with a friend, in light habitats, where he has started to create a small agricultural activity. We started to build habitats light, I was a yurt and he had made a military tent which he had refitted. We put it on the ground, we put wind turbines and solar panels to be energy self-sufficient. I tried techniques of market gardening and the year after we had created a small AMAP. Then there was a slightly more complicated period: on the Guérande peninsula they hunted for light habitats. So we had to leave. At that time it is the meeting between Yves loïc and diana, they decide together to build a house out of boots straw on the ground. We built seven years ago.

It’s a straw bale construction 01:55 - with a wooden structure, post-beam system. We had the framework, electricity and water done. We did everything else ourselves, with Diana, it took us two years. But concretely it is built how a house in straw bales? At the start there are beam posts, then we make the roof over it, which already protects, so it is out of water. Next there are wooden uprights and between them we insert bales of straw.

02:31 - The straw bales therefore serve as concrete blocks and make an excellent thermal and sound insulation. This also makes it possible to develop a cereal by-product, that store co2 during its production and at the end of its life it’s compostable. They then left for America discover different types of farm, this is where they discovered the market gardening living soil. Wait, can you explain the market gardening? living ? Living soil gardening is a cultural practice based on two principles: first of all the soil is little or no worked, this allows not to destroy the life of the soil. Then the soil is fed with nitrogen and carbon to allow the proliferation of the biodiversity.

The farmers will use 03:12 - natural mulch which will cover the ground. This will limit plant growth not desirable because they do not have access to light. We therefore need less work the soil and weed. This mulching will also feed the worms, insects, bacteria and soil fungi. Their number will therefore increases. They will help structuring the soil and digesting the organic material. They make minerals available and nutrients close to the roots of the plant. This biodiversity will also decompose and feed the plant when they will die. So it’s nourishing the life of the soil and having so much abundant life that ultimately there is not a predator who will succeed in moving on to above others. It’s always going to balance out at a moment there are so many interactions. The main constraints that I found it’s the voles, it’s a uncomplicated because as we still working are covered plants they can always hide.

At the level of raptors for example it is 04:20 - a little bit complicated to find them, they can make galleries. As we don’t touch our ground we don’t break the galleries, it proliferates a little bit but hey also understand a little better how can we work with them. We noticed that the voles are not interested in young seedlings. It’s really the seeds. So now we’re all leaving at the start in small honeycomb plates. As soon as the plan is out and it is transplanted. Finally we don’t waste time because that there is no weeding part at the start, it’s directly planted.

04:53 - So we’re trying to find little tips like that. As we have already presented to you, another specificity of this farm is that none mechanized tool is used. But why did Yves Loik make such a choice? So it was a point of view ethics on the one hand, that is to say that I thought it was good to try to show that agriculture could work without oil. At the same time I’m really not at all comfortable with mechanization, like tractors. I find that right away it’s big investments.

So we’re already getting a little 05:33 - financial pressure. also requires knowledge mechanical level that I don’t have and that I didn’t really want to develop. So I limited myself to trying to think how can a system be viable without using mechanization. One of the challenges of the project was not to depend on banks, not make a big investment right from the start and then see that after a while, well, maybe it’s not what we actually want to do, not feel trapped in something. With Diana from the start we got always worked by doing everything small investments every year to gradually increase.

For example greenhouses, where 06:21 - we grow I got them for free, it was to a farmer. And during a storm they twisted, he wanted to put everything in the recycling center. I got them back and suddenly allowed me to install the greenhouses. In fact what was expensive was the system irrigation. Something was needed be done right from the start for don’t go back on it every year. And if not also like it’s cultures on boards in bins, it’s wood for do all the bins which was a small investment at the start. So on the first part actually as long as I was alone I had a little aside, my investments went up to ten thousand euros, apart from the purchase of the land. It’s really nothing actually on a farm Today Diana realizes other on-farm and off-farm activities. Yves Loik working with Sylvain: a sailor market gardeners who defines himself as a market gardening. If you want to meet them they sell their vegetables for sale directly within their farm in a small shop.

07:28 - Here is the story of another beautiful meeting and here we are, now set out again to set sail again to other great discoveries.