Neo-Farmers in Profondeville Reinvent the Collective Farm
On the heights of Profondeville, between pastures, fields and orchards, the day begins early at the Ferme des Arondes. This former farm has become the experimental ground for a collective of producers who have chosen to build a different way of doing agriculture together — one rooted in agroecology, citizen investment, and long-term land security.
The project, profiled by RTBF on August 5, brings together six founding producers — all of them NIMA (Non Issus du Monde Agricole), meaning none come from farming backgrounds. The collective includes Sébastien Petit (market gardening), Camille Eickhoff (bakery), Benoît Roche (mushrooms), Floriane Heyden (bovine livestock), Nils Mertens (laying hens and goji berries), and Loïc Monseur (wild plant transformation).
A Citizen-Funded Path to Land Ownership
The farm spans approximately 39.35 hectares between Arbre and Saint-Gérard, acquired in January 2023 through the cooperative Terre-en-Vue, which raises citizen savings to secure agricultural land for agroecological farmers. The acquisition raised 1,926,965 euros from 1,030 cooperators — a milestone that marked the first time Terre-en-Vue purchased both buildings and land together.
“It’s the first time we’re tackling such a significant purchase, with buildings,” said David, project manager at Terre-en-Vue for Wallonia, as reported by Economie Sociale. “This leads us to look for larger, different-type investors, which challenges our approach. It’s also the first time a legally constituted collective has approached us.”
The innovative legal structure separates ownership from operation: Terre-en-Vue holds the land and buildings, a long-term contract secures the Ferme des Arondes operating cooperative, and each producer maintains their own business entity. This model, detailed by Trends-Tendances, allows producers to maintain autonomy while mutualizing site management, investments, sales, and administration.
Agroecology as Daily Practice
At the heart of the farm’s philosophy is a commitment to agroecological principles. Sébastien Petit, who cultivates between 60 and 70 varieties of seasonal vegetables on 1.5 hectares, explains the approach: “We only grow seasonal vegetables. And we’re really attached to that. The goal is to encourage the consumption of local and seasonal vegetables.”
“The soil is worked with many inputs and a lot of patience,” Petit added. “We try to disturb soil life as little as possible and, on the contrary, encourage it through regular inputs of organic matter.”
The farm’s practices include food and fodder hedges, ponds, soil conservation techniques, and tree integration — elements that promote biodiversity, regenerate soil life, and store atmospheric carbon. These measures aim to build resilience against climate change impacts such as droughts and heavy rainfall.
A Response to the Land Access Crisis
The project addresses a pressing challenge in Wallonia, where Belgium has lost 70 percent of its farms in nearly 40 years — from 38,000 to 12,700 since 1980. With 69 percent of established farmers over 50 and only one in five having a successor, land access has become critical. Non-farmers own nearly 58 percent of agricultural land in Wallonia, and prices have soared, with the average hectare reaching 30,521 euros in 2020.
“Indeed, we can see a continuous concentration of land within large agro-industrial groups and too few new entrants working in resilience,” David of Terre-en-Vue noted. “The current crisis is impacting land prices, which are running away.”
For the producers themselves, the collective model offers both practical and emotional support. “I would never have started alone,” said Nils Mertens, who raises laying hens and cultivates goji berries. “I needed a system supported by a collective. Individually, it’s not manageable in the long term, especially when working with animals.”
Camille Eickhoff, the farm’s baker, sees the project as part of a broader social vision: “Seeing the whole process clearly, we tell ourselves it makes much more sense. We know where it comes from, what we feed people with, and what the quality of the product is. We’d like to move toward a more sustainable, more supportive society with more human connections.”
What’s Next
The collective aims to supply 300 households in the region through short supply chains by 2026. The farm, which holds the Label Finance Solidaire and is listed as a member of the House of Agroecology, continues to expand its production and processing activities.
“As a collective, we manage to produce sustainable, quality food while remaining anchored in the local fabric,” the producers state. “An agriculture that nourishes without exhausting resources, that cooperates rather than isolates. An agriculture that considers the land as a common good to pass on.”
At Profondeville, a different agricultural future is taking root — one that demonstrates how citizen engagement, innovative legal structures, and agroecological practices can together offer a viable path forward for the next generation of farmers.