La Conservatoire des Terraces Cultivées de Goult

The planted terraces of Goult--A window on the past and lessons for the future.

04/02/2009
La Conservatoire des Terraces Cultivées de Goult
If you've ever spent time in Provence, you may have noticed--and marveled at--all the old stone ruins scattered about the countryside. Quite likely, you found them romantic and picturesque. While they are all that, they also bear witness to an intriguing historical fact. Provence--especially Haute Provence, the Provençal backcountry--was once much more populated than it is today. If you hike in the hills of Haute Provence (really the foothills of the southern Alps), you'll be amazed at the ruins you'll discover in incredibly remote areas. And if you've a curious mind, you'll ask yourself how people ever lived in such difficult terrain.

The answer is that throughout history and even up to the second World War, they farmed ground that wouldn't be considered even marginal by today's agricultural standards. We're talking terrain that is too dry, too rocky, and most of all, too steep to be farmed using machinery. Three phenomena made such farming possible and practicable. The first was these farmers were content to do what we would call today "eke out a living." They consumed almost nothing that they didn't produce. The second is that, because they were content with so little, they were able to farm manually. And finally, they lived in such intimacy with the natural environment that their profound understanding of it that enabled them to cooperate with nature in order to exploit every nook and cranny in it to the maximum. (But more about that below). In today's jargon, we would say their "energy footprint" was so small as to be almost nonexistant. These were people who truly walked lightly on the earth.

One of the visible vestiges of this kind of agriculture is the persistence of large-scale stone terracing in the hills of Provence, the Var, Vaucluse and even the backcountry of the Côte d'Azur. Since World War II and the advent of large-scale mechanical agriculture, these terraces have been abandoned to reforestation or housing development. But, during the past ten years or so, both farmers and some parts of the citizenry have begun to reclaim and restore these terraces, in a common realization of the partrimony they represent. The terraces--or restanques, they are known in Provençal--form an integral part of the vernacular of the local landscape. In addition, some farmers are recognizing that the "old ways" of farming them can yield specialty niche products of great added value. And in the village of Goult, in the Vaucluse, the community has set about restoring the terraces that lie at the periphery of the village and historically fed its inhabitants. In so doing, they've created a veritable conservatory of planted terraces, complete with informative signage. All this makes for an unforgettable afternoon walk through a breathtaking landscape and--with a bit of imagination--a trip back in time.

Goult is a classically beautiful hilltop village of the Luberon, nearly as architecturally interesting but much more unspoiled than nearby Gordes. Your walk through the terraces begins at a landmark hard to miss: this beautiful windmill at the back of the village which--during the heyday of cultivated terraces--was used to mill the wheat and press the olives grown there. For me, the windmill is a powerful symbol of the fruitfulness of terraced agriculture.

From the windmill, you follow this path into the secret world of the terraces.

As we set off on the path, an elderly woman was mounting it, carrying a bundle of kindling in a basket that she had gathered on the slopes. This has remained for me an indelible image for its authenticity. How many of us take a walk out into nature to gather sticks to light our home fire, and what sort of world would this be if more of us did? For better or worse, I am haunted by futile questions such as this as well as by a nostalgia for that rhythm of life.

A short way into the labyrinth of paths that lead through the planted terraces, you come upon a "botanic garden" of aromatic plants that has been planted by the village school.
As the sign reads, the garden was created in 1998-99 by the village school students, and restored in 2007-2008 by its middle school students. If you're expecting a real botanic garden, don't. But it is a charming botanic exercise for schoolchildren, with a small collection of local aromatics identified in childish hand and ornamented with stone plaques carved by the kids.

If you keep your eye out, you'll notice a wealth of plants that inhabit the special microclimate of the planted terraces. Most of them are plants that appreciate good drainage and warmth, such as the colorful succulents (below).

When we were there in early May, there were also orchids, and in shady spots, ferns growing right in the stones of the walls, as well as masses of fragrant pink-and-yellow woodbine (honeysuckle) tumbling over them. Of course, there was the ubiquitous (but always appreciated by me) Provençal thyme, and masses of the sunny yellow everlasting Helichrysum italicum (photo below), prized by the cosmetic industry (Occitane en Provence has organized an entire product line around its beauty-enhancing properties) , and by me for dried bouquets that last for years.

The Goult terraces are planted with olive trees that have survived from the time when the restanques were actively farmed. Like most of the old olive trees in southern France, these were killed to the ground by the freeze of 1956.

The trunk stubs--surrounded by the regrowth from the roots that became todays clustered trees--are still visible (photo below left).These old stumps are mute testament not only to the olive wood's resistance to decay, but moreover to the tree's incredible tenacity to life. This ability to regrow from the roots is why almost all of the older olive groves (dating from before 1956) you see in France consist of regrown clumps of trees like the trunks at right.

Since Goult has rediscovered an interest in its planted terraces, these venerable olive trees are once more pruned and cared for. On the spring day when we visited, they were loaded with bunches of bright green young olives.

But historically, these terraces grew much more than olives. Traditional terrace farming was an exercise in polyculture, a concept now coming back into agricultural vogue, especially in organic and permaculture circles. Olive and other fruit trees occupied the terraces, but beneath them, wheat or more likely, petit épautre (lesser spelt, an ancient wheat relative), lentils, chickpeas, and other drought-resistant crops were grown. If I lived in Goult, I'd be proposing that we plant at least one of the terraces with these crops. After all, how many of us have ever seen chickpeas growing? And we could take an inventory of the butterfly species present, and... Well, I'm full of ideas.

I'd like to claim that this was the original "French intensive" gardening, except that I know that even today, such cultural practices persist in other countries (such as Morocco) of the Mediterranean basin. In fact, polycultural terrace agriculture arose as a farming solution in steep, dry terrains simultaneously and independently all over the Mediterranean. To me, this proves that terrace polyculture is an ecologically sound practice uniquely adapted to this special environment. And it's a technique packed full of lessons and ideas for the 21st century.

First of all and most obviously, terrace agriculture allows marginal terrain to become fruitful, an idea not without interest in a world where millions of people go hungry (this in spite of the munificence of large-scale modern agriculture.) This way of farming is accessible even to the poorest populations (given that they inhabit hilly zones) with nothing more than a few hand tools. This way of farming manages water wisely and ingeniously, through the use of cisterns (photo above right) to capture runoff and a series of minicanals or aqueducts. Crucially, it maximizes the advantages of a unique microclimate created by the presence of myriad stone retaining walls on a sunny hillside. These include longer daylength than in a valley; radiant heat given off by the stones at night, which help minimize frost; and superior warmth which hastens and improves crop ripening. This last factor is why some of France's finest wines are still cultivated entirely by hand, after nearly disappearing during the romance with mechanization. Banyuls, Condrieu, and Côte Rôtie are prime exemplar appellations. We've all become familiar with the evils of monoculture (I hope). Well, the polycultural terraces were the embodiment of diversity. And maybe all our honeybees wouldn't be disappearing if their hives were placed in special warm shelters such as these traditional hive niches (photo below left) . Who knows?

Of course, it goes without saying that terrace agriculture is supremely suited to organic practice. After all, traditionally all agricultural terraces were farmed organically; there wasn't any other way! Curiously, this had made the relict terraces in southern France especially interesting for organic farmers. As chemical inputs have never been used on them, they are inherently 'clean' and can be certfied organic immediately without a "conversion" period. In addition, the unique microclimate makes them supremely suitable to the niche production of high-value, high-quality products. An excellent example is the Cevennes onion, prized in France. In order to bear this label, the onions must have been grown in the old terraces of the region.

Now, I know that restoring and gardening in stone-retained terraces is anything but low-maintenance landscaping, and that recultivating their forgotten splendor isn't going to save the world. The terraces in the heyday of their life required a painstaking system of paths, walls, steps, and waterways, all of which required constant maintenance. Nevertheless, I like to imagine what it would have been like to live in a stone borie (photo right) with wild flowers growing in the roof over my head. I'd like to conjure--if only for a moment--the simplicity of life in a single room, and the intimacy with nature that would be mine. My life would have been physically strenuous, but counted in real value, would it really have been poorer? How would it have felt to straighten my back, tired from hoeing, and look out over the valley, watching the swallows diving for insects in the last rays of the sun? In our current painful tumble from the heights of excess, these ancient cultivated terraces and the way of life they represent afford a precious opportunity for reflection.

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La Conservatoire des Terraces Cultivées de Goult

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