European journalists gather in Auvergne for biggest French cattle show

ENAJ has organized a Low Budget Press Trip to sommet de l’elevage (breeders summit) in Clermont-Ferrand. The 34th edition had no cattle on show for sanitary reasons but the ENAJ group didn’t go home without touching cowskin.

Sommet de l’élevage has started modestly in 1992 with 133 stands and 9000 visitors. These numbers have developped strongly: The 2025 edition had nearly 1800 exhibitors and has attracted around 120’000 visitors from all over the world.

Journalists from 7 countries present

Unsurprisingly, this magnet for all things agriculture is attracting ag journalists too. Thats why ENAJ and the french agricultural journalists guild AFJA have organised a Low Budget Press Trip to the capital of Auvergne. Besides a day at the fair the trip featured interesting visits to companies, research facilities and farms.

Late Sunday afternoon, a group of 15 journalists from Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Norway, Slowenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom assembled in the pictoresque old town of Clermont-Ferrand for a tasty first impression of opulent French cuisine at a typical brasserie.

Prediction model for climate change

Monday brought a dense programme that started on the Domaine de Mons in Aubiat where major seed producer Limagrain – one of ours sponsors – entertains an experimental farm. The cropping system Matrix that we visited in the beautiful morning light is a 12 year experimental platform launched in 2022 where the company compares the growth of different varieties of corn, cereals and other crops in longtime comparison, with and without catch crop.

After a warm welcome by the groups CEO Sébastien Chauffaut Limagrain researchers later presented tools do improve farmers situation under growing pressure of climate change at the Research Center in Chappes: The prediction model Geo Star for next years climate,  draught tolerant varieties and reduction of methane emission through crop varieties that help rising feeding efficiency and creating ruminal comfort.

«Climate change is a fact»

In the afternoon we were invited to visit INRAE, a public research institute working «for the coherent and sustainable development of agriculture, food and the environment». INRAE has 14 divisions and 18 research centers with a total of over 12’000 employees. We visited the centers of Cruël and Theix near Clermont-Ferrand, where the focus lies on adaptation to climate change. «Climate change is a fact», stated Jerôme Salse, head of the research unit in his welcoming adress. There’s three main research domains :

• Genetic improvement of animals and plants
• Hybrid cropping with mixed cultures
• Agroforestry

 

Among other things we saw the huge cereal seed bank, the experiments for cereal phenotyping and some projects for sustainable livestock farming.

Highlight of the evening was the opening ceremony for the sommet in the townhall. Among the speakers were Olivier Bianchi, the mayor of Clermont-Ferrand and Ahmed el Bouari, the agricultural minister of guest country Marocco followed by a walking buffet focussing on specialities from the region, cold cuts, interesting cheeses and warm wraps.

Well saturated we drove on to Vichy where we had our base during the fair days, because it’s nearly impossible to get a hotel room in the host city during the sommet.

 

Fair without cows but nevertheless interesting

Tuesday was fair day. We started our summit-experience with a guided tour and after that, we had the day at our disposal. The show is enormous although this year, there were some big empty spaces in the halls for dairy and beef cattle where the fair normally hosts 2000 animals. Due to Lumpy Skin Disease the organizers decided to not exhibit any cows and bulls as a «preventative and precautionary measure». The animal presentations were limited to sheep, goats and horses.

 

 

 

Nevertheless the visit was worthwile. Starting with the animals, there was an impressive exhibition of the very diverse french sheep, goat and horse varieties. In the two main halls the visitors found hundreds of the most important companies and institutions serving french agriculture while on the vast open space of the show you were able to get an excellent oversight of the machinery sector from tractors to forestry equipment of all sizes. There were also some autonomous tools but generally there were no major innovations in sight.

 

Profitable cheese production on the farm

 

 

The last day was dedicated to three interesting farm visits. We started at the GAEC (french for co-operative farm) of brothers Jeremie and Christian Bellini. They operate a combined dairy and beef farm on 210 hectares. Jeremie is responsible for the 80 Montbéliarde cows with an average production of 6500 kilos of milk a year. His brother Christian is farming the 60 Charolais suckling cows, while sister Fabienne produces cheese and other milk products on farm.

The farm produces a total of around 550’000 kilos a year, 150’000 kilos are processed on farm, the rest goes into the dairy industry for 48 cents at the moment. Meanwhile the price of processed milk on farm amounts to an impressive 1.5 euros.    https://gaecfontsainthuile.fr/

 

Producing bisons for direct sales

The second farm visited was dedicated Bisons d’Auvergne farm of Matthieu Peron. He and his wife Christel are both agronomists and bought the 230 hectares farm some 13 ago, searching for a specialisation with high added value and possibility of direct sales. The bisons seemed the right choice at the time and apparently still is. The herd contains a total of 400 heads.

Peron is currently investing in a slaughterhouse for the 80 of his bisons he is selling in an average year (90 percent direct sales to private customers with own shop and 10 percent to restaurants). It turned out to be very difficult to find a slaughterhouse that is ready to process buffalos. Currently he has to drive 250 km to a butchery in Bourg-en-Bresse in Burgundy. There is different reasons for this difficulty, one of them being that buffaloes are quite dangerous animals, as Peron said. So taking the right precautions is very importang. So far he had never had an accident with handling the animals, the farmer said.  https://bisons-auvergne.fr/

 

Dominant beef cattle in Auvergne region

Unfortunately I missed the third visit to a Charolais farm in Chavenon due to travel arrangements. The farm has a surface of 180 hectares and is owned by Stéphane Berthomier, he herds around 100 Charolais suckling cows and is selling breeding animals. The animals are sold to local butcher shops. Charolais are the predominant beef cattle breed in the Auvergne region. Beef cattle is dominant here as a big share of the agricultural surface is permanent pasture. No wonder that Clermont-Ferrand became berth of Sommet de l’élevage which started as a beef cattle show some 33 years ago.

Thanks a lot to the organizers of AFJA, the french ag journalists guild for the organisation of this interesting trip and special thanks to Yanne Boloh, the chairwoman of ENAJ who was the main organizer and master of ceremony !

Adrian Krebs, Switzerland

Sommet de l’Élevage – 1er salon mondial de l’élevage durable