Breeder Michel Van Simmertier and his wife Marine with the cow Ovalie, the face of the 2023 International Agricultural Show, on February 9, 2023 in Saint-Alyre-ès-Montagne, in central France (AFP/Archives/Thierry ZOCCOLAN)
“It’s a very docile cow that lends itself well to the game of photos and cameras”: Michel Van Simmertier, young breeder of Ovalie, a Salers born in Puy-de-Dôme, in the land of rugby, does not stop of praise for the muse of the Agricultural Show where she arrives on Friday.
Ovalie owes its first name to the passion of its breeders for the oval ball: “With ASM, rugby was obvious” underlines Marine, 34, Michel’s wife, in reference to the Clermont- Ferrand.
The five-year-old cow was selected because she has all the qualities specific to the Salers breed, whose cradle is located in Cantal, around the small village of the same name perched at an altitude of 1,000 metres.
France has nearly 220,000 cows of this rustic breed, primarily a traction and cheese production animal, capable of producing milk and meat.
Ovalie has “beautiful lyre-shaped horns, a broad forehead, a big muzzle, a good tight top with a good pelvis and a nice udder because she is a suckler cow”, details Michel, 32 years old.
Without forgetting an impeccable mahogany dress, with curly hairs.
The icing on the cake, the muse cow of the show will travel to Paris with her twins, Utopia and Utopia, born in January.
Very calm despite the numerous requests, the beautiful 800 kg does not flinch during the photo shoots, and willingly poses, broken in the exercise.
Brushed twice a day, shampooed every week, the heifer is pampered by her breeders: “We put protection on her horns so that she avoids scratching herself and tearing her hair out with her horns”, explains Marine.
-A life choice-
The couple took over a farm in 2018 in Saint-Alyre-ès-Montagne (Puy-de-Dôme), on the Cézallier plateau, at 1,100 meters above sea level.
Breeder Michel Van Simmertier with his Salers Ovalie cow, the face of the 2023 International Agricultural Show, on February 9, 2023 in Saint-Alyre-ès-Montagne, in central France (AFP/Thierry ZOCCOLAN)
Ovalie was born the same year as their installation: she has already taken part in competitions with her mother, Jonquille, and “we quickly understood that we were going to keep her. We have a few of our favorites”, says Michel smiling, at the head of a herd of 150 animals, including 80 nursing mothers.
“It took us a little time to realize… Ovalie is the star of the 2023 Agricultural Show and the ambassador of the diversity of French agriculture, it’s a chance”, says his wife .
The two farmers, both of whom went through an agricultural college, settled outside the family framework, that is to say without any link with the agricultural environment, which the organizers of the Show do not fail to highlight.
“I was a girl of nature, but before arriving at high school, I had never approached a cow or a tractor. My teachers asked me if I had not taken the wrong direction!” amuse Marine.
She was born in Alsace, he in Seine-et-Marne, with however ties in Cantal.
“It’s really a life choice. Farmer is a job but it’s also a way of life. So it’s rewarding, but it’s difficult, it’s daily sacrifices, you have to be ready to do it out of passion”, underlines the thirty-something.
At the beginning, “there is a financial investment and a very significant debt and then, we have no family next door so we find ourselves alone to manage the farm and the young children, it’s a whole organization! “, says this mother of two children, Gabriel, three years old, and Léa, six years old.
Salers cows on the farm of Michel Van Simmertier, in Saint-Alyre-ès-Montagne, on February 9, 2023 (AFP / Thierry ZOCCOLAN)
The future ? While the number of cows bred in France is falling, “the economic situation is not very good, the prices are not very high, we have costs that are exploding. But we hope to continue to generate an income and live from our profession and our production”, says the young breeder.
Their goal: “Perpetuate (their) structure and transmit something viable to (their) children”.
© 2023 AFP
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