“Let the plants do it!”

Laurent's cereal farm is located 50 km south of the French capital, in the flat, linear landscapes of the Paris Basin, once known as one of Europe's most fertile areas. He was recommended to me as an active member of a “conservation” farmers’ association that promotes zero tillage as a means of reducing soil erosion and storing carbon. Laurent's father had stopped plowing after the EU Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) reform of 1992 “to save time,” he told me. “And to save fuel and equipment. And labor! We didn't know what the new CAP would bring, we were afraid of losing income.” Soil health, now at the core of his association's concerns, wasn't an issue back then. “It was an economic concern first. But then we saw . . . no water infiltration and so on. We said: there's no need to work the soil, let the plants do it!” (Ile-de-France, September 2024)