Sophie Dias is a young agricultural engineer who is interested in our food and the way it is produced. She created a podcast “Échos de Ferme” to give farmers a voice and make their jobs better known.
Sophie Dias is a young agricultural engineer who is interested in our food and the way it is produced. She created a podcast “Farmhouse Echoes” to give farmers a voice and make their professions better known. She criss-crosses the Tarn-et-Garonne with her microphone.
video duration: 00h02mn25s
Sophie Diaz meets farmers to share their reality • ©FTV
For her eighth podcast, the Montalbanaise decided to go to Albias in the Castaneas farm, where Marion Degans and Séverine Lhérisson work. These arborists market walnuts, chestnuts and hazelnuts in France and internationally. They also make spreads sold in producers’ stores and delicatessens.
Specific questions, lively exchanges… She records and broadcasts these podcasts on the internet via Deezer, Spotify or Youtube. “It’s really a passion of the heart for me agriculture, explains Sophie Dias. And so the goal is to go to farmers to give them a voice, to understand their daily lives, but also together to question the future of French agriculture and therefore our plate. And thus be able to raise awareness, popularize agriculture with the consumer so that he has the keys to make his decisions when paying and taking out his credit card”.
The point is broad. With Marion Degans and Séverine Lhérisson, Sophie Dias addresses all subjects: from the history of the family farm inherited by Marion and her brother to production methods, including product development, sales strategies and control irrigation.
The tone is light, sometimes playful, always dynamic. Sophie launches the debates, questions and does not hesitate to risk the “great debate” which still tears the generations: “brown, chestnut … the difference?”.
It is Séverine who sticks to it with pedagogy. “The chestnut, the tree, makes chestnut and chestnut. It’s a story of identical and fraternal twins. It’s related to pollination. A wall forms in the middle of the fruit. If it is there, it is chestnut, otherwise it is brown. But mostly it tastes the same. And we must not confuse the fruits of the chestnut tree with those of the horse chestnut whose fruit is toxic”.
For the women farmers, it is a way of making known their work and their know-how, as well as the spirit in which they have chosen to cultivate their land. The contact with the young agricultural engineer went perfectly. “His speech is very neutral so I think his audience can form their own opinion while being informed about what is produced and how it is produced in the surroundings. It is a need”testifies Marion Degans who joined the project spontaneously.
Sophie Dias believes that the agricultural sector is too often singled out without the public knowing or understanding the reality of what farmers are going through. • © FTV/Thierry Villeger
Sophie Dias is doing justice in her own way. She believes that the agricultural sector is too often singled out and victim of“agribashing” while the vast majority of professionals are very committed to their farms and exercise their profession with conviction while adapting to strong constraints.
“The objective is to show the reality of what is produced on the ground and also to show the diversity of our agriculture in France” summarizes the author of the podcasts.
“It’s a great initiative. We felt a sincere person when she proposed the subject to us, explains Séverine Lhérisson. His podcast really informs consumers about how we live on our farms, how we produce, the heart that we put into work because these jobs are a bit tough anyway”.
“It’s important for us to have the floor because there is often misinformation, she continues. People talk about us in general, but each farm is very different. We can have the same surfaces and the same productions. , but we can have very different things. We will manage it differently… each farmer manages it in his own way, does his best and offers things in his image”.
“And then, we are full of young people in their thirties or forties and we have opened up new perspectives, productions… and it is important for us to have a platform”.
After the exchanges with the producers and the complete visit of their exploitation, it is the stage of the assembly. A difficult moment, because we have to hold the interview in about half an hour. Podcasts are freely available on the internet via Deaser, Spotify or more recently Youtube. In 3 months and 8 episodes, Sophie Dias already has more than 800 followers. She decided to tour Tarn-et-Garonne for a year, then Occitanie. Her dream: to survey the whole of France to make known all the productions and know-how of the country, which she considers extremely rich and ultimately undervalued.
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