Restoring soils through co-cultivation of trees and cereals

Jack De Lozzo is an organic farmer who works 80 hectares of land on rolling hills in the Gers department of Southwest France. Hot summers, cold winters and marine-influenced rainfall levels, combined with the area’s heavy clay soils, make the task of raising beef cattle and mixed cropping using organic methods a major challenge. He explains how the area faces chronic problems of soil compaction, erosion, declining fertility and loss of organic matter. Farmers’ usual response is to deploy expensive, energy- and chemical-intensive techniques, creating a variety of environmental blights in return. Organic farmers have no such remedies.