At the dawn of her 50th birthday, after having worked for twenty-nine years at Orly airport, Christine Falsquelle decided to radically change her life. “It was a little scary decision at the start, but necessary,” she says today. After careful consideration, the mother of four decided to quit her Parisian life and her very comfortably paid operational passenger reception position to start snail farming in Neuvy-sur-Loire.
Objective: to produce 100,000 snails per year
She bought her property three years ago, with her companion, who practices ULM and with whom she regularly used to land in Beaulieu (Loiret). “This is an old farm,” explains Christine Falsquelle. “I thought to myself why not try to do something here. Something that suits me, because I could no longer find my account in the company. Relationships, kindness, attention, simplicity, it’s important to me. “
The property has 4 ha, not enough to set up as a farmer, but enough to start snail farming. “My companion once suggested to me: ‘We are in Burgundy, why not get started in this production” “, she recounts with undisguised enthusiasm. After having taken information, conducted a market study, the now ex-Parisienne begins training to breed these gastropods.
After a test this year, with a “mini-breeding” which has brought satisfaction and which will improve thanks to the courses, the young fifty-something intends to really get started in the spring. Breeding yards will be built behind the house. It is expected that there will be 350 mollusks per square meter. They will not be organic but Christine Falsquelle will make a point of raising them “as healthily and as simply as possible”.
I want to meet people, that they come to see me, my animals. An animal is sincere, it does not pretend
–
It is expected that the first arrivals will take possession of the premises in May, in anticipation of a first pickup in September. Then, they will be transformed in a lab that will be created on the farm. “For me who loves animals very much, it was paradoxical to slaughter them, but I know how they will have been brought up and I also know that when the slaughter is well done, they do not realize anything. »Products stamped l’Escargot en Vrille, which will be available on the markets.
Before tasting them on the plate, it will be possible to observe their congeners in the parks since Christine Falsquelle also plans to open, at the same time, an educational farm “to share and transmit”, she develops. “I want to meet people, that they come to see me, my animals. An animal is sincere, it does not pretend. “
In addition, an educational farm
La Neuvycoise is thinking of setting up a snail house with terrariums to present various species and of course “the real Burgundy snail”, she announces. At the same time, a mini-farm will be created. Although a native of the Paris region, Christine Falsquelle lived for several years in the Perche with her horses. The latter have joined the Nièvre. A farm that has grown with two goats and geese. “It made sense living in Neuvy,” she laughs. Chickens and recently a Dexter cow.
The geese are back in the park of Neuvy-sur-Loire
Always with the will to share, the future heliculturist would like to “open a shop with local products, the surplus vegetables from the garden, to rediscover the spirit of the old-style farm”. A plant exchange market is also in the pipeline. Country life turns into a very fertile ground.
Mathilde Thomas
– .
