One more tool to preserve the Greater Alsatian Hamster. This species, protected since 1992, will benefit from a label on certain products. Part of the money collected will be used to protect it in our fields.
Take cover from combine harvesters
It is the OPABA, the organic sector in Alsace, which is at the origin of the initiative. In total, these are three organic products resulting from agricultural practices that preserve “cricetus-cricetus”, the scientific name of the European Hamster. And you can’t miss them: a big hamster smiling at you is written on these packets of organic flour, cookies and granola.
– OPABA
Part of the sale price will go to the protection of the species. “We set up refuge strips so that on harvest day the hamster can take refuge from combine harvestersexplains Francis Humann, the president of the OPABA. It also allows him to continue to find food and therefore perhaps to make two litters in the year.
Show the public that we can do something
“In Alsace, we are still very focused on the cultivation of corn. Agriculture is not yet industrial but it is on the way”, believes Jean Kircher, the director of the Kircher mill in Ebersheim. With the monks’ mill in Krautwiller, it is one of two millers to have stamped part of their production “Grand Hamster d’Alsace”.
“Showing the general public that we can redo something so that nature can regain its standards, that’s an idea that I like”, he continues. The common hamster of Alsace is a protected species on the verge of extinction. There is some left about five hundred in the plain of Alsace