La Ferme du Bois was from the outset the place where the agricultural practices attached to the Institute were taught.
As a model farm, it enables new materials to be tested and tried out or innovative techniques to be developed in line with the disciplines taught and research. Since 2004, following a donation from Mr. Jules HUCHER, the school has had a second site in Maurepas (Bézu-La-Forêt - Eure). The UniLaSalle farm begins this millemnium with new projects, in line with today's economic, social and environmental concerns.
Support for educational and research activities
The farm is pedagogical support for student engineers in Agronomy and Agro-industries. It serves as a framework for application work, where groups of students are responsible fro monitoring a crop.
Farm also offer students the opportunity to put themselves in a professional situation by carrying out work oriented towards the resolution of a problem such a study, research, concrete realisation within the framework of centres of interest or areas for further study.
The farm is also a support for Research; Experiments in breedingin open fields or in micro plots are regularly carried out.
The farm has to be profitable in plant and animal production which is of major interest for the region: wheat, suger beet, cattle breeding, while being irreproachable in its environmental practices.
A variety of projects
The UniLaSalle farm, which has been ISO 14001 certified sinc April 1, 2005, is carrying out an environmental management process within a group of Picardy farmers (TERR'Avenir). It is the first school farm to obtain this certification in France.
This modern tool allows the comparison of herds on questions of feed management and breeding, by measuring the technical, economic, but also environmental and organisational impacts.
An agroforestry plot was inaugurated in January 2010. Research programmes have been launched, focusing on biodiversity (impact of agroforestry developments to promote useful biodiversity), water quality (impact of trees on nitrogen losses in pure crop plots and agroforestry plots) and overall biomass production (comparison with an area of annual crops).
The farm is involved in the "Farm of the Future" project, in line with the activities of the world-class competitiveness cluster "Industries and agroresources" on agroresources.
- 195 Ha of UAA and 32 Ha of PEFC-certified timber
- Wheat 65 Ha
- Rapeseed 35 Ha
- Escourgeon 30 Ha
- Pasture 22 Ha
- Broad beans 18 Ha
- Corn silage 15 Ha
- Fallow land 2 Ha
- 35 dairy cows for 310,000 litres of quota
- 8 hectares devoted to experiments and educational work (cereals, protein crops, flax, fodder, etc.)
- Livestock for educational purposes (beehives, poultry...).
- 168 Ha of UAA and 2 Ha of woodland
- Wheat 70 Ha
- Pasture 48 Ha
- Sugar beet 20 Ha
- Rapeseed 10 Ha
- Flax 10 Ha
- Alfalfa 10Ha
- 55 selected suckler cows of Charolais breed
- Production of heifers and grazers
- Sale of male breeding stock
- Direct sales of meal in boxes