La Connection Francaise

(The French Connection)

By Randy Weckman

“How do you keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?” was a popular World War I ditty—a piece of social commentary about the potential for American farm boys to see their own lives as rather dull when reflected in the luminescence of the City of Lights.

Ag economists Steve Riggins (left) and Steve Isaacs, both leaders in the student exchange program with France, enjoy some French culture in Kentucky—coffee and pastry at a local café.

Yet, 80-some years later, the question might be asked “how can the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of those doughboys be truly
successful in agriculture if they don’t know about the rest of the world?
Voila! A French study trip that focuses on agriculture.

UK ag students Shawn Burger and Renee Saunier have both taken part in the College's student exchange in Dijon, France. (Dijon is indeed the mustard capital of the world, made famous by recipes for both Dijon and Grey Poupon mustard.)

Exchange Program Benefits Ag Students

For the past 11 years, the College of Agriculture has sponsored study trips to Dijon, France, for agricultural students. But the trip is no paper-thin excuse to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, or even the Left Bank. The trip is every bit as much an eye opener about agriculture as Paris’ bright lights were about life in general for the doughboys of World War I.

Steve Riggins, UK agricultural economist, as chair of the 13-state Southern Region Marketing Committee, mused in 1991 with fellow committee member Charles Curtis, an agricultural economist representing Clemson University, that while the land-grant system had a tremendous history of working successfully with Third World countries, not much land-grant activity had occurred with countries whose agricultural system was equivalent to—and in some areas even better than—ours. The two agricultural economists decided then and there to investigate the possibility of putting together a package that would remedy the situation.

“Charles had a contact with an agricultural technical school just outside of Dijon, France, whom he believed might be interested in some sort of exchange. Pascal Durand, a world renowned viticulturist (grape producer) with ENESAD (Etablissement National D’Enseignement Superieur Agronomique de Dijon), was soon on-board with the plan,” Riggins said.

The timing was right. Durand advised Riggins and Curtis that the French government was seeking to streamline and improve agricultural education. ENESAD, the technical agricultural school funded by the French National Ministry of Agriculture, was to be associated with the University of Burgundy in Dijon, a traditionally liberal arts school, funded by the National Ministry of Education. An agricultural experiment station
(INRA—Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique), close by and also funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, was slated to be brought into the fold. In essence, the association of the three institutions emulated the land-grant system in the United States.

Durand believed that the cultural and technical exchange could enhance agricultural education in France; Riggins believed that the exchange could help Kentucky’s students become more aware of different agricultural systems in the world.
“Pascal was enthusiastic, and by October of 1991, an agreement between the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska, and Clemson University had been forged with the French institutions,” Riggins said.

Parlez Vous

After all the bureaucratic paperwork was signed in October 1991, the first exchange took place the following October. The first year’s adventure in some measure was a cultural tour of agricultural production in the Burgundy region with tours of Paris agribusiness firms, which are an hour and a half northwest of Dijon. While that first exchange was just over a week long, it nonetheless was a resounding success, with students reporting that they had a greater appreciation of the world’s agricultural infrastructure. One of the drawbacks, however, was the U.S. students’ limited knowledge of the French language and culture.

So, two years after the first “class” went to France, Riggins worked with fellow agricultural economist Mike Reed, whose area was international trade, to help flesh out the exchange to enhance the students’ learning.

“Mike Reed secured a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help pre-condition the students for the trip. With that funding, we offered a three-hour class that met throughout the semester before the student exchange to prepare our students to gain the most they could from the trip,” Riggins said.

“The funds allowed us to hire a UK political science doctoral student—a native of Breton, France—to teach a crash course in the French language. Other experts on French history, politics, and agriculture rounded off the semester-long class,” Riggins said.

French student Jerome Julien studied with agronomist Tom Mueller this summer.

That year, the trip would be extended to several weeks for all the students. Later, the French trip would allow students to opt for a two-week tour or a four-week stint (sometimes longer, based on the student’s desire) that included working in some facet of French agriculture.

In the meantime, to make the trip a true educational exchange, Durand enlisted French agricultural students to come to Kentucky to study U.S. agriculture. The French students’ tour was for six to seven weeks, since many of them use their experience as the basis for their “memoir” paper, a term project roughly equivalent to an undergraduate thesis that is required of them for graduation.

From Paree (France)
to Paris (Kentucky)

In 2003, 15 students from France studied for the summer at the University of Kentucky. Projects ranged from agronomy to agricultural engineering to plant pathology to animal sciences.

Florent Voiry, one of those 15 students from ENESAD, worked on a special project under the tutelage of agricultural engineer Scott Shearer. Voiry’s project was to design, construct, and test a forage yield monitor for a GPS system. After two weeks on campus,

Florent Voiry, from the Burgundy region of France, studied with agricultural engineer Scott Shearer.

Voiry completed the design phase and began constructing the device that “reads” forage yields in front of the tractor. He worked on it at the College’s farm shop.
Voiry, who grew up on a farm producing beef, small grains, and row crops near Nancy in the Burgundy region, will use his project as his memoir project, provided that the test of the device goes well.

“I am excited to be able to work with Dr. Shearer and in such a well equipped shop. I love ag mechanization and plan to work on a master’s degree after graduating from ENESAD,” he said.

Fellow Frenchman Jerome Julien is using his summer at UK to study Global Positioning Systems and Geographic Information Systems with UK agronomist Tom Mueller.

Twenty-seven-year-old Julien, from a village of about 100 people in the south of France, had spent several years as a teacher’s assistant prior to enrolling at ENESAD. He plans to graduate with a specialization in computer engineering and agronomy.

“This is a fine opportunity for me to study GIS/GPS. I will use what I learn here as part of my memoir paper when I am ready to graduate,” he said.

From Versailles (Vur-Sales)
to Versailles (Ver-Sigh)

For Kentucky students, the two-week tour includes a whirlwind inspection of agricultural production sites in the Burgundy region as well as major cultural sites such as the Louvre (most of the students have a bon ami take pictures of themselves next to the Mona Lisa). The agricultural production sites include typical farms (an average farm size in France is about 110 acres), as well as farms that produce exotic (for U.S. students) products, such as wines, truffles, and free range, branded (Bresse) chickens. They also see sites carrying out intensive small grain production (high seeding rates per acre with high fertility and pesticide use compared to U.S. production).

“We saw so much that I am still thinking about all that I saw, even though I’ve been back from the French trip for three weeks,” Shawn Burger, a junior in agricultural communications, said this summer. “I am still amazed at how different cultures lead to such wide differences in agriculture.” A native of Burgin, Burger plans a career in agricultural marketing when he graduates. As a result of the French trip, Burger is considering adding an international dimension to his career plans.

While Burger opted for the two-week tour, Renee Saunier—an agricultural economics and French major from Lexington who graduated in May 2003—stayed in France all summer in 2002, working on a research project about marketing Zinfandel wines to the French. (Zinfandels are known as California wines, although the grapes from which they are made are Croatian in origin. French consumers have little exposure to Zinfandel wines, partly because they are not routinely available.)

Saunier's project was to interview winery owners about their retailing of Zinfandel wines. Of the seven wineries she visited, she found that only two sold Zinfandels—and neither sold much of them.

“The trip was a great experience that opened up many doors for me to pursue a career in wine marketing,” she said.

As a result of her experiences in France, Saunier will be returning in October to teach English as a second language to French elementary schoolers and to take graduate courses in wine marketing at the University of Burgundy.

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