SOn the frame of his bike is written his name, attached to a small French flag. This design is reminiscent of the customization of racing cars. It is a nod to his former profession. Jérôme Zindy made films about rally raids. This 37-year-old from Mulhouse took a 180-degree turn in 2020. “Talking about the environment without upsetting the environment myself” is now his guiding principle. “I wanted to completely leave this 100% fossil fuel world,” he says.
Since then, he has not set foot on a plane again and crisscrosses France on a bicycle equipped with solar panels. In a metal basket at the back, there is his filming equipment, with a camera and a drone. At the front, two bags contain his batteries, which give him 120 kilometers of autonomy. “You saw the weather over the last eight days,” he smiles. “I got caught in a lot of water. In the rain, the panels still produce, but much less.”
“Bike reports”
His latest journey involves producing reports on “the players in organic farming, from the field to the plate”. They will result in short videos, two to three minutes long, intended to be broadcast on his website and on social networks. There will be seven of them, exclusively focused on the region. This project is in fact supported by the Interbio Nouvelle-Aquitaine association, which aims to develop regional organic sectors.
“Before 2020, I ate without any awareness of what I was eating”
For these “bicycle reports”, as he calls them, he had to start by reaching this geographical area on board his astonishing machine, a prototype with fairly small wheels, but damn sturdy, a warm-up that represents “1,000 kilometers diagonally” from Alsace, “at an average of 22 km/h”, and in all weathers. He left his home on June 17. Staying with locals, or rather “with the farmer”, he takes his tent everywhere.
His first subject was filmed on June 25 at the Edouard-Vaillant college in Bordeaux, whose central kitchen, managed by the Departmental Council, supplies five other establishments, or 1,800 meals per day containing “38% organic products”, almost double the proportion set by the Egalim law, “which is 20%”. On June 28, he was at Place de la Bourse with, among his interlocutors, Philippe Lassalle Saint-Jean, the vice-president of Interbio Nouvelle-Aquitaine. “We went from a period of health crisis, during Covid, when people all fell back on healthy products, to the Ukrainian crisis which, two years later, is reshuffling the cards”, explains the CEO of Maison Meneau. “Inflation is taking hold, people are making trade-offs and we are the first to suffer. But today, the erosion is stopping. In 2024, in certain sectors, we are starting to rise again.”
Six steps
Ce 1is July, Jérôme Zindy stops in Montpezat-d’Agenais, in Lot-et-Garonne, “to go and see a multi-variety orchard that has been organic since 1960”. Then he heads to Rouffignac-Saint-Cernin-de-Reilhac, in Dordogne, where a laying hen farm awaits him “that produces 270,000 eggs per year”, before going to Saint-Martin-de-Jussac, in Haute-Vienne, to interview “an organic beekeeper who has 350 hives”, then to the Ferme de Chassagne, a group of agrobiologists in Villefagnan, in Charente. The last episode will take place in Périgny, in Charente-Maritime. He puts out an appeal: “We are looking for a consumer, with a busy schedule, to show that organic is possible, from a financial point of view too.” He himself has changed his habits. “Before 2020, I ate without any awareness of what I was eating.”
