{"id":279,"date":"2017-06-21T21:29:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T21:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/?p=279"},"modified":"2017-07-11T00:45:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T00:45:08","slug":"farms-french-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/2017\/06\/21\/farms-french-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Farms and French Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was more low-key than yesterday, with just a tour of a local organic farm in the morning and a lecture by Professor Lahouari Addi about secularism in France in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

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The whole farm complex was stunning; it was all colorful painted shutters, red tile roofs, and blooming gardens! It was like a painting!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the heat of yesterday, everyone was eager to get out of the heart of\u00a0city and into the outer rings of Lyon, which consists of an\u00a0adorable patchwork of farms. We drove out in a small bus (which was air conditioned, much to our excitement!), and the sea of golden grasses that we passed through\u00a0reminded me of Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Cypresses<\/em>, which he painted in rural France. The blurring of the landscape created by the bus’ movement made me see clearly how he as an Impressionist got his inspiration!<\/p>\n

The farm, La Ferme du Milon, is an organic farm established by its current owner almost thirty years ago, although it became certified\u00a0organic in the early 2000s. It is exclusively a meat and dairy farm, and does not grow produce, although our guide informed us that La Ferme rests in the midst of a very close-knit farming community, so trading across property lines is common. We all got a kick out of socializing with the donkeys,<\/p>\n

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Several of my friends\/fellow travelers have shown pigs through programs such as 4H, so it was like a small reminder of the US!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

cows, pigs, sheep, and, of course, the farm dog! We also learned about the different types and levels of\u00a0certifications that farms can earn, which are quite extensive and so acronymic that I won’t try to replicate them here. However, suffice to say that this particular farm was in the top tier of French farms, especially with reference to sustainable organic farming practices. We stayed there for lunch and tried a bunch of dishes made with ingredients produced right on the farm! It was really interesting to see some of the practices we read about in our pre-departure assignments in action on the ground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While the farm visit was primarily relevant to\u00a0our French agriculture policy class,\u00a0the lecture we attended with Professor Abbi\u00a0tied in to our French culture class.\u00a0After a brief pit stop at our hostel to cool down, refill our water bottles, and (in my case) take a 30 minute power nap, we headed over to a local political science college to meet with Professor Abbi. He is an Algerian Frenchman and gave a fascinating talk! It was all about the role of secularism in France and how governmental policies are affecting people of all faiths, but with a focus on the Muslim population. We all really appreciated his perspective and were grateful to get a chance to ask him questions!<\/p>\n

It is also World Music Day (La Fete de la Musique) here in France, so later this evening, I headed out with a group to catch some live bands performing by the river Saone and in old town! Tomorrow we’ll be heading to a vineyard and a dairy to continue our study of agricultural and food processing practices in France. Au revoir!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was more low-key than yesterday, with just a tour of a local organic farm in the morning and a lecture by Professor Lahouari Addi about secularism in France in the afternoon. After the heat of yesterday, everyone was eager to get out of the heart of\u00a0city and into the outer rings of Lyon, which … Continue reading Farms and French Politics<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7R7eI-4v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}