Work Is Fun, And Even More So Here

A new trade agreement between the United States and the European Union is being processed, and since there are a lot of concern and misunderstandings about what agriculture looks like in the U.S., the Counselor's Office with the Foreign Agricultural Service in Paris worked with me in developing a presentation giving an overview of the diverse mosaic of American agriculture.

Rarely do I have to put together my PowerPoint slides a week before my scheduled presentation dates (click here to read about the rare opposite last-minute extreme). But this time I had to submit the file a few days before I left for Paris. I am glad that I did because that left me plenty of time to work on other projects that were due right after I returned from France, and more importantly, it gave me a little extra time and a lot less to worry about so I could take in the elements during my compressed schedule once I arrived in Paris. As it turned out, the venues where I spoke and the transit sights dripped with history, so when speaking or walking or riding between meetings during the four days I was in France, I was treated to a bit of a tourist experience just in that.

Académie Nationale de l'Agriculture français

The French National Academy of Agriculture - Académie Nationale de l'Agriculture français - is a public institution under the President of the French Republic, with the Minister for Agriculture as the honorary president. The Academy's mission is to help inform citizens and policy makers on all aspects of agriculture and the environment. I was greeted in the executive director's office that was lined by bookcases filled with volumes of tomes to the practice of agriculture. During my welcome to academy members who came to hear my lecture, one of the officials showed a stack of books reporting on a visit to a farm in America owned by Thomas Jefferson. I noted that the books are a century older than the time when my European farmer ancestors emigrated to the United States in the later half of the 19th Century.

Institut National Agronomique

The Institut National Agronomique is the premier agricultural university in France. The campus has been combined with two other institutions to form the Institut des sciences et industries du vivant et de l'environnement - also know as Agro ParisTech. This was first time I have lectured to students and faculty in a long time. The lecture room had steep stairs leading down from the rows of seats that looked down on the lecture area below. The seminar advertisement is posted here. I haven't seen many other universities in the heart of a cit: Columbia in New York City, George Washington in the District of Columbia. There is not much difference here - the halls are filled with students that look much like U.S. students, but it is a little odd to walk into a common gender bathroom.

French Sénat

The French Senate building is spectacular - as impressive as the best of the U.S. Capital Building. This must have been what President Washington was thinking about when he directed that the U.S. capital be build as impressive as those in Europe, so our fledgling country would be taken seriously by those in the Old World. Much of the common areas in the building are ornate, with as large as life portraits on the walls and large marble sculptures. Once we walked up to the conference and office floors, nicely laid out corridors replaced the ornate decor that first greets any lawmaker or visitor.

Agropolis International

Agropolis International in Montpellier is an association of French higher education and research institutions that work in agriculture, food, biodiversity, and the environment. Their efforts are directed at Mediterranean and tropical regions involving a great range of stakeholders and partners involved with economic develop in France and internationally. The bullet train ride from Paris to Monpellier took only three-and-a-half hours. Traveling through the plains south of Paris, then through Burgundy, and watching the transition from continental Europe to the Mediterranean south made me feel more like I was in California than France. The seminar presented was presented to the Agropolis faculty, with the announcement found here.

Only a couple of reporters were among the groups I met with - not the biggest news of the day. A press article is posted here. Much like Washington, D.C., Paris is a working capital where the government buildings are public places. The significant difference being centuries ago government offices were built as palaces for nobility or mansions for the well endowed - the American capital was build on a swamp at the beginning of our republic.