Jack De Lozzo is an organic farmer who works 80 hectares of land on rolling hills in the Gers department of Southwest France. Hot summers, cold winters and marine-influenced rainfall levels, combined with the area’s heavy clay soils, make the task of raising beef cattle and mixed cropping using organic methods a major challenge. He explains how the area faces chronic problems of soil compaction, erosion, declining fertility and loss of organic matter. Farmers’ usual response is to deploy expensive, energy- and chemical-intensive techniques, creating a variety of environmental blights in return. Organic farmers have no such remedies.
