Known for being the first winegrower to go organic in La Crau: Béatrice Lambert wins a national medal

She is part of this army of farmers whose name does not appear on a label, but who feed and keep cooperatives alive. At 46, Béatrice Lambert has just been made a knight in the National Order of Agricultural Merit , notably for having been the first winegrower at Cellier de La Crau to go organic, in 2019. She is also known as a producer of organic figs, which she sells, still wholesale, to Copsolfruit in Solliès-Pont.

Coming from a family of farmers for at least seven generations, she was nevertheless caught in the nick of time by her vocation. Wanting to spare her the harshness of this profession, " my father always told me, 'Don't be a farmer, become a civil servant!'" she recalls. He also thought that with two daughters, the family's destiny would end . This reminds us that women farmers were not so numerous, even twenty years ago.

High-level handball player

A high-level handball player, the young woman then earned her Staps degree to become a sports teacher. " But neither local authorities nor the National Education system had a place for me at that time. At 28, when my father retired, I found myself picking bourjassotte ." Or PDO purple fig for the uninitiated.

Dressed in a long shirt, trousers, cap, and gloves in the middle of summer to avoid getting " hyper-stinging" fig milk on her skin, she faces the difficulty of picking this fragile fruit. "A technique that will never evolve, because you have to pick it by hand ." However, she decided to switch to organic farming straight away in 2007, which meant accepting the loss of 25% of her harvest. " I'm very close to nature, killing animals has always bothered me," she explains, speaking of insects.

" For the vines, I was told that it would be too complicated to go organic. But in the end, I told myself that it was impossible not to do it. It's harder, more mechanical, we had to invest in machines and we do the debudding by hand. My husband and I do everything from A to Z. "

His fig trees on TV

But she has no regrets, and has just taken over her sister's vineyards. Even though this year, because of the wine crisis, " the cooperators have lost a lot of income, like in all the wineries ," explains the one who is an administrator in her two cooperatives and vice-president of the Syndicat de défense de la fig de Solliès. There are now five growers participating in the organic red and rosé vintage called "Bon pin" from the Cellier de La Crau. Béatrice Lambert also develops her fig trees, which have already been featured on Tous en cuisine , La meilleure boulangerie de France , and on national TV news.