Setting up in agriculture: Klara Meyer and Alexy Julien, their first steps as breeders in Valdonnez

Alexy Julien and Klara Meyer spend time among their animals. Midi Libre – Célian Guignard

The young couple settled in milking sheep at the end of 2023, in Rouffiac, in the town of Saint-Bauzile, in Lozère. Their Gaec, the Sabots du Valdonnez, is the culmination of a long reflection and the beginning of a beautiful adventure with multiple projects. Encounter.

Tastes, hugs and caresses, the ewes, lambs and rams of Gaec les Sabots du Valdonnez, in Rouffiac, ask for more. It must be said that their owners, Klara Meyer, 23, and Alexy Julien, 25, new dairy sheep farmers, pamper them. If their working days, together, on their 140 ha farm, for a herd of 350 to 400 head, are busy, they do not miss spending time with their animals.

The young couple settled outside of the family at the end of 2023. The result of a long-considered project. "We saw the farm on the Departmental Directory at the installation (RDI) of the Lozère Chamber of Agriculture , remembers Klara Meyer, a native of Haute-Savoie. We visited it in May 2022, before spending a year scouting." A period during which Alexy Julien also worked at Duo Lozère, before a sponsorship internship, and Klara Meyer, at the Hyper U cheese factory.  

"Comfortable operation"

This investment of nearly one million euros is not a goal for the two partners, who have no shortage of projects for the future. future. "We are waiting to spend one or two accounting years, then we would like to have our transformation workshop and do direct sales", announces Alexy Julien, originally from La Fage-Saint -Julien by his mother and from Faverolles, in Cantal, by his father. For the moment, their milk has the dual designation AOP Roquefort and IGP Pérail for the Lactalis group. "We would also like to stop silage for everything make hay and have other animals, cows and a few goats, continues the breeder.

This Wednesday, February 7, 2024, 1,294 liters of milk were sent to the Massegros dairy. Midi Libre – Célian Guignard

After two and a half months on their own, every day spent on the farm is a pleasure for the two farmers. "The operation is really comfortable, continues Alexy Julien. We have an automatic straw blower. Milking is also automated. When all the ewes are available, it takes us about three-quarters of an hour to go through them all. We have a milking belt ;food. And the ventilation system is very efficient. When you enter the sheepfold, there is not that smell of ammonia that you can find elsewhere."< /p>

"The most complicated thing is the fluctuation of loads"

The agricultural world is currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis. Lozère was affected by numerous demonstrations. Klara Meyer and Alexy Julien took part in the first action, in Mende. "For us, the most complicated thing is the fluctuation of charges, they regret.The price of milk is negotiated one year in advance. For lambs, it changes every week. We know how much they cost us, but we don't know how much we will sell them for. What's stupid about the system is that we don't set our prices. We live from aid and not from our work. In the end, it is our salary that serves as an adjustment variable. We have made a forecast over fifteen years, but we already do not know what we will be like in five years… "

Whatever the hazards of the future, the couple no longer sees their life anywhere other than in Lozère and believes in the future. He intends to anchor himself in Saint-Bauzile, where he hopes to buy, or have built, his house. Further proof, if any were needed, that agriculture and Lozère are alive, modern and attractive.

Follow the work of Klara Meyer and Alexy Julien on their Facebook page Les Sabots du Valdonnez. 

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