Friends from the Auvergne Region who have recently visited us. Three pairs of farmers, four winds from the department of Puy de Dome, have met Elgar at the market tables they keep every week. However, cows and goats of all kinds are so great that we soon discover the strength and virtue of their crib, that in the fields they see no more than the path of all evils. And they have there, above all, names as famous as St Nectaire or Fourme d’Ambert in the gas cows. All the eyes of our friends were based on biological cultivation, with short circuits and a direct sale as the only way to save the territory. Balin aims for the future of your land!

Many may say that we cannot necessarily travel half of France to expose the inadequacies and the darkness of the signs. Here we have a rather critical perspective.

We want to recognise that these very demanding approaches have their foundation, but, as we have wished to explain to those of Auvergne, the way in which the designation of origin is managed may in part alter a whole country.

The designation of origin Ossau Irati celebrates 40 years of celebration this year. If the pastors of 1975 and 1980 had not risen above the future of sheep’s milk in Ipar Euskal Herria, if the days and overnight stays had not passed, then the grazing here would have to investigate, what panorama would our cultivation in this country today offer? We owe it to Arno Cachenaut and his friends. Whether we wanted it or not, until recently we depended on the Roquefort company, and in Aveyron they no longer needed our sheep's milk to make their blue cheese, we had two or three paths to go. We could remain under the dominance of the Aveyrontes and they could develop our kind of gas compared to their blue. We could subject ourselves to the brands and labels of the dairy industry, and the great chucherías, like the sheepcheese producers Etorki, had invented a bright future for sheepcheese in the morning. The Basques that we have competed on the third road and, in part, the winegrowers, we have decided to defend the sheep here, growing here the sheep breeds thereof, continuing to use the land and the mountains here, and offering the producing houses and the small and large dairy farmers the competition for a single cluster, from production to trade.

How many struggles the OECD has not taken year after year of those principles of the designation of origin, among other things, for the delimitation of breeds and territory, for the preservation of production and grazing regulations, for channelling the aid of the sheep through the protection of the Cradle Ossau Iraty…

It is possible that the analysis is finer and more rigorous, as the ends of the declining black sheep head are still standing, or domestic production, which is a more autonomous form of forage, or that those who have chosen biological have offered special and additional forces.

In general, the picture of sheep farming in the Basque Country could have been different if the unions and pastors had not pushed the path that has been taken. Weren't five hundred or a thousand weeping sheep like in winter? Would most of that pastoril culture not be lost and what would our shores and our mountains look like? It is enough to talk to the farmers of Hego Euskal Herria to recognise that the strictest production regulations drawn up and implemented here have helped to ensure the survival of grazing in rural and mountain areas.

There are other examples in the Basque Country, to clarify the strength that a shell can have in a territory. For lack of space, we can leave the Biper de Ezpeleta or the Arno de Irulegi without specifying. There are hundreds of farms competing in limited areas around the joint collective force. It is possible that in the centre there are some that have been enlarged in an ugly way or that grow at the expense of others. It may be done much better, and there are many cleaner and more durable individual routes. Because collaboration gives a good image and clear hope to our rural world.

We have not won everything. We have seen that everything is in our hands. Tomorrow's competition is not a weakening of the crops that are going well, but a strengthening of the new departments. What remains then is that we have to link production closely, buying here all the markets of it, which are in the hands of specialised shops and department stores. Horticulture can have a path to the open sea. Like domestic production, the collective sections have a future, quality of the productions and autonomy of the farmers and farmers for the benefit of our neighborhood and live village.