Le Retour des coquelicots

How can we deal with the present and look to the future of agriculture without looking back at its past ? François-Henri de Virieu's film "Adieu Coquelicots" (1970) seemed to us a good starting point. Thirty years ago, fathers didn't know the new stakes their sons would have to deal with. By passing on the farm to them and entrusting them with its management, they thought they were handing down a certain skill as well as a certain love of the earth. But the sons have changed under the pressures of the Marketplace. They started cooperatives, gotten themselves into deep debt with the banks, went into off-soil breeding and intensive culture. Management, profitability, as well as "subsidies" and "quotas" have monopolised the public debate. But thirty years on and many human and environmental disasters later, urban consumers are growing anxious while farmers have lost their erstwhile demographic clout but remain more than ever at the heart of public debate. What role will the "peasant" have tomorrow ? Lately, the State has been trying to give him another status, make him play another part: that of the "country planer" and "guardian of the territory". Does that mean that the poppies are back again" ? The entire relationship between city and country is today being challenged... Will we know how to "re-invent" it ? Marion Aldighieri and Gonzalo Arijo