Greg, seed multiplier in the Béarn region of France

Greg's home is an old building overlooking the surrounding countryside, a place where he feels closer to Heaven, with which he has a strong bond. Forgotten archives at the back of cupboards revealed the history of the place. These little treasures dating back to the French Resistance enabled him to study the Béarn region. Today, he scans the ancient ruins and remodels the land in the image of the past, to rediscover the ancestral platforms where the ancients used to farm. Thanks to him, staircase gardens and ancestral paths have been brought back to life.

The supermarket chain, for which he worked for a time, got the better of his tolerance of today's food model. Lists of "products" written in black and white were undeniable proof of the absence of diversity. For him, resistance lies in the seed. Greg tells us about "one time too many", the day his boss at his old job refused to let him watch a solar eclipse. The future gave him the best revenge of all, and he now has the equinox as his only boss.

Passion has led Greg to the profession of seed producer, and he's entering his third season. He now enjoys playing with genetic material. He's constantly looking for ways to optimize his process: cultivation, the manufacture of harvesting and post-harvest processing machines, the discovery of new species, the quest for quality... Greg even goes so far as to create his own database: With 10 lettuces, there are 10 grams per lettuce, I can predict the amount of toadflax I'll need, I record planting and repotting dates, etc.". ". Greg knows, season after season, when and how to work the soil, and his magnificent garden bears witness to this harmony. The tools he's made for himself as the need arises rival each other in ingenuity: from the drill that drives the movement of a supermarket checkout conveyor belt, to the paint blower for removing seed husks, everything is gleaned and optimized! His eye for the world around him has always been his best teacher.

Nature, an accomplice to his project, provides him with multiple advantages: Greg has several plots of land that offer him a diversity of soils, from clay to loam, from generous sunshine to discreet rays, Greg and his little family flourish on this 5-hectare playground. The advantage of his land lies in its layout: it is isolated from one another by sections of century-old oak groves, which enable him to maintain varietal purity.

Greg remains impressed by the productivity of his seeds. "I picked radishes, the job was done, it was delivered... - Greg shows us his radish-covered plot - radishes are growing everywhere, I hadn't even seen them! Without watering, without anything, really, it's something that wouldn't happen with an F1 hybridization made from a field with lots of fertilizer, so yes, there's going to be a yield, but behind that you can't do anything with it!"

Greg stands proudly next to his Bamboo Shoot tobacco, much taller than he is, and readily admits that this variety is a real favorite. Leaf in hand, he shows us a stem that stands out from the crowd: "Whenever there's one of these, it's genetic disparity.You see this one, I cut it off before flowering to prevent it from crossing with the others, otherwise the concept would become obsolete [...] the leaves have nothing to do with my Bamboo Shoot. The leaves are nothing like those of my Bamboo Shoot, so you can see the wide habit despite the small leaves. We have something with very pointed leaves at all levels. So I removed the canopy, the flowers, to avoid cross-pollination; to prevent this character from becoming part of the Bamboo Shoot specifications, it's got nothing to do with it. What I do is phenotyping, which we call varietal purity rectification. "

Stars light up in his eyes when he discovers with us a baby snake nestling at the bottom of a vein of compost: "It's fabulous! I've been waiting and watching for this moment! His desire to live in harmony with the elements of nature has never left him.he used organic cotton thread to hold the climbing beans, like most organic market gardeners, until one day a Green Woodpecker broke a leg thinking the structure was solid. Greg nursed the bird back to health... As a precaution, he will henceforth use an iron trellis structure used to pour concrete.

For Greg, the future cannot be dissociated from the past: there is a duty to respect and preserve by perpetuating the work of our ancestors.A wind of hope blows Life in abundance across his land; Greg is already training the next generation and plans to give a share of his farm to his young son!

Video: Meet Greg!