Page 46 - Biorefinery 2030 Future Prospects for the Bioeconomy (2015)

2 History 13

beyond his village. He was a man of action, guided by his religious convictions, a
passionate defender of agriculture. He shared the same Christian vision of progress,
justice and action as Le ´on Harmel.
The two men immediately got on well together, and decided to set up a farmers’
union together with some other local farmers. Their aim was much more ambitious
than to create a “buying cooperative” responsible only for providing its members
with seed, coal, tools and technical resources. This farmers’ union aimed to make
farmers responsible for their future and to put religion into practice in their business
life. The farmers did not resort to socialism, and did not work with wholesalers
whose only aim was “to get richer by speculating.”
In 1894, at the instigation of Le ´on Harmel, the Syndicat Agricole de la Cham-
pagne was created, with Gustave De Bohan as its first president. Its slogan was “Let
us do our business ourselves. Let us not be administered.” Its motto was “Let us love
each other.” This union, with its head office in Reims, covered the Marne
de ´partement and the south of the Ardennes. Thus “The Reims camp, from which
3
the founders of CHAMPAGNE CEREALES originated, was made up of men who
were committed to applying the values of social Catholicism, based on the
4
assertions of the encyclical Rerum Novarum, to the organisation of business.” 5
The union developed rapidly, and at the beginning of the First World War had
5000 members. It was also behind the creation of credit unions including the
regional bank ‘CREDIT AGRICOLE de la Marne, de l’Aisne et des Ardennes’ in
Reims in 1889, of mutual insurance companies, and of the agricultural cooperative
‘PROVIDENCE Agricole de la Champagne’ (c.f. Fig. 1.10).
At the same time, another radical-socialist regional union was growing in
importance. In 1888, this movement was behind the creation of the first farmers’
union in the Marne, the “Ligue agricole de la Marne,” founded by Charles Barre ´,a
farmer from Conde ´ sur Marne. This secular organisation, based in Cha ˆlons, was
very active. It was supported by the radical politician Le ´on Bourgeois, published a
newspaper, distributed fertilizer to its members and instigated the creation of the
6
Cre ´dit Agricole of Champagne in Cha ˆlons-sur-Marne (1905). It developed coop-
erative organisations such as the ‘Union Agricole Horticole et Viticole’ (Agricul-
tural, Horticulture and Wine-growing Union, 1908) and the ‘Coope ´rative des
Producteurs Re ´unis de la Re ´gion de Cha ˆlons’ (United Producers Cooperative of
the Cha ˆlons Region, 1922).
Over the years, these two unions competed against each other, but shared the
same objective of efficiency through modernisation. In 1938, they formed the
‘Union des organisations Agricoles de la Marne’ together (Union of Agricultural
Organisations of the Marne) and then merged in 1940 as the ‘Corporation
paysanne’ which was disbanded at the end of the war. This first successful

3
Currently VIVESCIA.
4
Encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, published in 1891 by the Vatican Publishing House.
5
Curutchet (1999).
6
Now Cha ˆlons-en-Champagne.