Launched in 2019 by young people from the agricultural world, the Tour de France Agricole is much more than a study trip. By visiting farms for two weeks, students experience a different way of learning about agriculture: through encounters, debate, collective inquiry and a festival. This annual travelling adventure has given rise to a genuine youth movement by providing a space for training, politisation and planning for the future – rooted in rural areas and farming realities.
The Tour de France Agricole (TdFA, or Agricultural Tour of France) began with the profound questioning of dominant agricultural models by three childhood friends, all sons of farmers. They brought together a group of young people in the city of Nancy in the north of France, most of whom had studied agronomy and shared the same observation: their training courses were often very technical and generalist, leaving little room for the realities of farming life and the knowledge built by farmers themselves.
It is a collective investigation by young people to understand agricultural transformations and to build their positioning
Organised by the Christian Rural Youth Movement, the first TdFA brought together around twenty participants from all over France with a variety of academic backgrounds: not only agronomy students or graduates, but also social scientists. Over a two-week period, the group toured across the country in small buses and visited some twenty farms that had implemented innovations across three themes: agronomic innovation (agroecological practices, biodiversity, input autonomy, carbon storage); social innovation (collective work, living conditions, knowledge transmission); and political innovation (trade union involvement, structuring of local organisations, land access).
Since then, the Tour has continued each year, showing that another way of learning about agriculture is possible. Each year, the organisers find inspiring farmers to visit through the Confédération Paysanne peasant union (a member of La Via Campesina), CIVAM groups (Centres for Initiatives to Promote Agriculture and the Rural Environment) and by using local press and social networks. Word of mouth and chance encounters also enrich the search for these farmers. The idea is to engage a wide range of farmers, tailored to the interests of each participant. For example, in 2025, we discovered Les Croquants, a collective of farmers who showed us their farm with its fruit trees, laying hens, market garden, bakery, cereal production and local beer.
From the outset, the TdFA has been more than a simple ‘study trip’. It is a collective investigation by young people, not only to understand the agricultural transformations underway across the country, but also to build their positioning as future professionals in the agricultural world. Bringing together experiences that are otherwise often lived in isolation allows participants to compare viewpoints and develop collective knowledge on contemporary agricultural issues.
During the visits, we usually spend the morning touring a farm before sharing a meal with the farmers. The conversation may range from the farmers’ backgrounds to the history of their settlement, their daily organisation, or to the trade union struggles in which they are involved. In the afternoon, we move on to the next farm to set up camp before spending the night there.
From an adventure to a collective tool
What was supposed to be a one-off experience has taken root. Year after year, new young people join the Tour, some by word of mouth, some attracted by screenings of Toucher la Terre (Touching the Earth), a film that was made during the first rendition of the TdFA. Starting with some 20 participants in the first year and growing to 40 in the second and more than 80 in 2024, the TdFA is transforming and gradually moving away from its initiators. From 2022 onwards, there was no longer just one, but three simultaneous tours criss-crossing different territories. Each tour follows its own itinerary before coming together for the Tour festival, a joint celebration open to the public.
As the organising team transitioned from a group of friends to a collective with multiple horizons, a gradual formalisation of the structure became necessary. In the third year, the TdFA organised its first general assembly: a weekend that brought together former and new participants to collectively decide on the future of the initiative. The chosen structure emphasises democratic process and autonomy rather than fixed outcomes, with the goal of avoiding rigidity so that the structure is transferable. In this way, the TdFA has become a collective tool that everyone can take ownership of and bring to life over time.
One element is becoming a central pillar during this consolidation phase: the Tour festival. Launched in 2022, this annual four-day festival is the culmination of the journey undertaken during the two weeks. It is a moment of reunion between friends who have done different tours and between old friends made during earlier tours, some of whom only see each other once or twice a year. It is an opportunity for newcomers to feel part of a movement greater than themselves, to connect with people who also believe that a different kind of agriculture, a different connection to the land, and a different relationship to commitment are possible.
At the Tour Festival, newcomers reflect on what they have experienced through theatre sketches, posters and songs. Each group relives its experience of the two weeks spent together, while sharing it with an audience. This conviviality revolves around an enormous pot of aligot, a Southern French dish of mashed potato and cheese, cooking on the fire. Other festivities include games learned during the tour, or participatory DJ and dance sessions when night falls. It is thanks to these powerful moments that the TdFA is now a social space in its own right.
Nevertheless, despite the success of the Tour – as evidenced by 100 participants in 2025, its sixth year of existence – we believe that the audience should be broadened. Right now, the majority of participants are graduates (particularly from agricultural colleges) who are already familiar with agroecology. Many of them have experience in popular education and have the time to co-organise a two-week tour several months in advance. Since the TdFA aims to bring agriculture closer to young people and to inspire new agricultural vocations, we feel it must become more attractive to all young people, regardless of their social or geographical backgrounds, and that it must be adapted to reach young people from other spheres.
The emergence of a grounded political mindset
We have noticed that the diversity of the visited farms challenges participants’ assumptions and opens new possibilities. They see small organic farms that sell directly to consumers and are economically viable, and collective farms that guarantee five weeks of holiday per year for each member – sustainable models that many would not have thought possible. These encounters give rise to lively debates and a new awareness among young people of the major political issues that are at play, such as water management, access to land, gender dynamics and food safety regulations that are unsuitable for small-scale farms.
This encounter with the institutional political world marked a turning point and fuelled our group's desire to politicise
Faced with the discrepancy between their observations in the field and the dominant discourse on agriculture, participants’ reflections led them to formulate and disseminate a political message in 2025. At a general meeting, working groups developed concrete proposals to bring about change in the agricultural world. This led to the creation of the Tour de France Agricole Manifesto, a booklet containing 16 proposals addressing current issues, such as the creation of a farmer-researcher status or a farmer civic service to give young people the opportunity to discover and experience farming in an officially recognised framework.
This manifesto does not aim to revolutionise the agricultural establishment, but to collect and promote solutions that already exist, often developed by farmers themselves. It can then serve as a basis for advocacy work. As soon as it was published, the TdFA contacted Mathilde Hignet, a former member of the Christian Rural Youth Movement, who invited the collective to the National Assembly to present its work to other parliamentarians.
Among the proposals, one in particular caught the attention of parliamentarians: the creation of an agricultural ‘intermittent worker’ status to better protect workers and seasonal workers (inspired by the existing intermittent worker status for performers and artists). This encounter with the institutional political world marked a turning point and fuelled our group’s desire to politicise and disseminate our learnings. We realised that our experience is valuable and that we have a legitimacy to share insights from our encounters and our knowledge with the French agricultural world and decision makers.
Thinking at a bioregional scale
The pace of the tour is another issue that emerged over time. Crossing France in two weeks allows for a wide variety of encounters, but sometimes leaves a feeling of incompleteness. Understanding a farm also means understanding its territory: local supply chains, the history of the region, the landscapes. Gradually, some tours chose to focus more on specific regions.
In 2024, two car tours were organised in Burgundy and in the Grand Est region, while two teams cycled through the Moselle and Meuse departments. In 2025, cycling tours criss-crossed the Charente and Loire-Atlantique departments, while another tour crossed the Pyrenees from east to west. The latter was cross-border, extending to the Spanish Basque Country, where participants discovered high-mountain farming and local delicacies such as Ossau-Iraty cheese and Kintoa pork, but also the difficulties encountered by the wine sector in the eastern Pyrenees.
In the same vein, the mode of transport is becoming a point of question. Since 2024, some groups have opted for cycling. Beyond its ecological benefits, this choice profoundly transforms the experience: cycling slows things down and connects people and place in a deeper way. “It forces us to inhabit the transitions between farms and to physically measure the territories we cross,” says Marine, a participant in the 2024 and 2026 bike tours. It shifts the focus from a ‘collection’ of farms to a more systemic view: landscape continuities, local supply chains, territorial dynamics. The TdFA thus becomes a tool for thinking about agriculture on a bioregional scale and helps those who wish to settle in the area to understand the complexity of their future territory.
Young people drawn to the countryside
For some people, visits are not enough: they are working together with other participants to develop their plans for setting up their own farms. The TdFA does not seek to provide ready-made answers to these aspiring farmers nor to propose a single model that is valid for everyone. Its mission is to help participants understand the diversity and complexity involved in initiating a farming project, and to give them the tools needed for them to make their own choices.
In the range of farms we visit – whether conventional, collective, agroecological or biodynamic – the agricultural world appears much more nuanced and less caricatured when we speak with the farmers themselves. Sometimes, the farms furthest from our convictions are the ones where we learn the most, as they challenge our preconceptions. Exploring different models allows us to develop a critical eye to help plan the next steps in our journey.
Sometimes, the farms furthest from our convictions are the ones where we learn the most
The prospect of participants actually becoming farmers has become all the more concrete over time as the Tour has become a space that brings together a broad cross-section of the agricultural world: advisors from ADEAR (an association for support in setting up farms), Confédération Paysanne facilitators, Chamber of Agriculture employees, volunteers from environmental associations… and established farmers!
Some of the participants in the first Tours have now become farmers themselves, and their farms have become hubs of the TdFA ecosystem, welcoming visitors in turn. In 2023, Olivier, a former participant and organic dairy sheep farmer, hosted the Tour Festival on his farm in Aveyron. The 2024 festival was hosted by Adrien in Meurthe-et-Moselle, co-founder of the TdFA and dairy farmer. The TdFA, which has grown from a small group experience to a youth movement, has become an essential step for these few hundred participants in their entry into the agricultural world.
While the TdFA is a unique story, what makes it all the more special is that it is not a one-off project. Similar projects are flourishing in France and beyond (see box above) and are developing their own approach to connecting with farmers. The strength of the renewed desire among young people to work in agroecology, organic farming, small-scale farming, or simply any type of farming that is different from the conventional, is rooted in their encounters with this diversity. This multiplicity of initiatives shows young people the real possibilities for changing the world through agriculture.
Authors: Mahaut Roussel (26) participated in the Tour de France Agricole in 2022 and 2025. She works as a farm settlement advisor, is a board member of WWOOF France, and is currently setting up her own business as a farmer, baker and winegrower in the south of France. Simon Guerin Sanz (26) did the Tour de France Agricole in 2023 and 2025. He works in agricultural advocacy and is active in rural and agricultural youth organisations at the European level.
This article is part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
