Published
Video length: 6 min
Agriculture: Julian Boutillot, the market gardener who cultivated while singing
Agriculture: Julian Boutillot, the market gardener who cultivated while singing
(France 2)
Head to Lorraine to meet a market gardener like no other, who sings in the middle of his plantations. Julian, still an engineer nine years ago, writes songs that tell stories about vegetables, makes clips of them and posts them on social networks.
Julian Boutillot sings in the middle of his two hectares of vegetables, in Lorraine. In his salads, the slugs are enjoying themselves these days to their heart’s content. Enough to make him write a song? “Definitely! The idea is to try to boost morale as best we can, and make people understand that the job is not easy”, he said. Julian says he is often inspired by “customer misunderstanding”.
He likes to involve his entire team in his clips. Between the fridge and the washing machine, during his lunch break, he is currently preparing his summer hit. For the clip, he asked market gardeners from all over France, as well as customers, to film themselves dancing.
A few days after the visit of France Télévisions, Julian Boutillot brought a philharmonic orchestra to his farm, “organized a big concert in a greenhouse” and invited all his clients, reports journalist Valérie Heurtel, on the set of 13 Heures. On the vegetable side, after Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), the city of Limoges (Haute-Vienne) began production. In 2023, public gardens and municipal greenhouses produced 42 tonnes of fruits and vegetables. “The bulk of the harvest is used to feed canteens, nursing homes and nurseries,” then the surplus is offered to the inhabitants. And for those who are unable to eat everything that grows in the garden, the “Aux Arbres Citoyens” association sends teams of pickers.
