pioneers of the alternative

Luck, for them, come in the disguise of the Mad Cow crisis, then that of chickens poisoned by dioxin. Just at the moment when they were going to throw in the towel, discouraged. "Every day between 1991 et 1999, I threw away entire crates of oddly-shaped courgettes, of green tomatoes. I said to myself: "It's not possible that we can't succeed in making them taste the difference. In 1996, I almost stopped. Mad cow disease was a tremendous stroke of luck for us. Since then, things are better." Denise and Daniel Vuillon stayed in Ollioules, on the family farm, "70 year old land enriched by their ancestors", but they have taken a radical turn in introducing in France the concept of a solidarity economy dear to the Americans and the Japanese: families motivated by the desire to eat differently join together with a farmer who produces differently*. In concrete terms, today, at the Ferme des Olivades, groups of families have committed themselves by pre-paying, over 6 months, their shopping baskets: once a week, the Vuillon fill them with a fantastic assortment of seasonal produce. "Little by little, people convert to it. They're seduced". An example of solidarity that's beginning to acquire a following in Provence.