Déplastifier sa vie. Nelly Pons. Illustrations by Pome Bernos

14 × 19 cm 64 pages 12 color illustrations softback march 2022 retail price: 10 €

REDISCOVERING YOUR INNER FARMER

Jacques Caplat Illustrations by Mélaka

Jacques Caplat is an agronomist and ethnologist. He was agricultural advisor in the Chamber of Agriculture, then coordinator at the National Federation of Biological Agriculture. He has also written a number of works including Une agriculture qui répare la planète, cowritten with Vandana Shiva and André Leu (Actes Sud, “Domaine du possible”, 2021). Mélaka is a strip cartoon and graphic novel illustrator who works with authors and scriptwriters. She worked on the adaptation of the presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s program, L’Avenir en commun, in 2017 and published Sous les bouclettes (Delcourt, 2018), a graphic novel dedicated to the life of her mother, the author Gudule, who died in 2015. T he phenomenon is more than a fad or fashion. In recent years, there has been a veritable urban exodus in the wake of the rural exodus of the post-war boom. People have demonstrated an urgent desire to get back to nature. Beyond their hopes of personal fulfillment and a sense of renaissance, neo-farmers with their brave, inventive approaches also offer a great chance for French agriculture. The exodus has enabled the maintenance of threatened rural services and activities and revival in farming practices based on agroecology. Have you felt the urge to hit the sticks? To help start out, Jacques Caplat shares his own experiences and practices, inspired by his own career; the son of a farmer himself, he left home for the city then returned to rediscover his roots. He shows that if we foster diversity at a human scale, far from the vast mechanized, destructive monocultures, agriculture can become a terrain for personal fulfillment while revitalizing territories and preserving biodiversity. In an age when work can be a source of isolation and discombobulation, returning to farm the land can help us reconnect with life, mobilizing the body and cooperation of a very real network on a daily basis. “By becoming a farmer in an autonomous agroecological system, you get to seize back the earth. Creating a permanent relationship with all the strata of the living, back in touch with birdsong, the climate, the seasons, the topography, water, the soil that clings to your boots, you get to reconnect with yourself and your body. Every day, you get to experience your body in its own sensitive relationship with all the elements.”