At n ° 6 of the road from Metz to Illange, the Ferme du Cerisier is an unmissable address. At the back of the house, sheds and enclosures have been intertwined for four generations. Pierre Grosse, 28, is the last to take up the torch of this farm where cereals are grown and a herd of Charolais cows is raised. The job is hard, little remunerative and often taxed with all the evils. It also has advantages: “Work in the great outdoors; contact with animals. One day is never like the other and then I am finally independent. I don’t see myself doing anything else, ”says the young man.
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Healthy food
Like other farmers of his age, Pierre wonders. He observes the small farms with difficulty and says to himself that it is a shame to get there, in the name of productivism. He who feeds his animals with fodder and cereals produced on the farm without GMOs, said he had to find a way to promote this work. Obtaining the Red Label a year ago was a first step. Today, Pierre and his partner Carole are betting on direct sales to get even closer to consumers. “The people of the village encouraged us to do this. They have been asking to be able to buy meat on site for a long time, ”emphasizes Carole.
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Buy in short circuit
The experiment has just started. “I take care of communication on the internet, taking orders, selling, collecting …”, lists Carole. The meat is packaged in packages of 12 kilos “but we adapt. If anyone wants retail pieces, we know how to do it ”.
The animals, born and raised on the farm, are slaughtered in Metz. The meat then goes to Francaltroff, to a butcher’s processor. The circuit is not huge but Pierre imagines being able to shorten it even more, soon. He thinks of the slaughterhouse that is to be built in Thionville and in which he has taken shares. Agile, he does not forbid himself any taboos. Go organic? “Why not, we’ll see”. Everything in its time…
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Value work
In the meantime, the diversification towards direct sales is already a great ambition. “People are asking for it more and more, especially since the Covid. They come back to the room. They want traceability, quality and also a good carbon footprint ”. For young farmers, this option will above all serve “to give meaning to our profession.” When we sell our animals to a cooperative, we never get back, we don’t know where the products go, to whom they were sold. In the old days, people used to come to the farm to buy their milk. Today they can come back for meat. We go back to the origins, in a way… ”
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