A grande Ecole

Back in the old days at Harper Adams we sometimes had French students join our course for a term or two to improve their English and learn how brillant our farming was. One of the first students to come was Maryse, a brave and intrepid adventurer at a time when relaionships between French and English farmers was not good. If I remember rightly she mostly felt cold, but her English improved and we had fun showing her England, despairing of proving English food was better when on a Harper canteen diet we had to go home to my Mum's cooking. A few years later Nevil and I attended her wedding, a traditional 3 day french celebration where the only other English was her former tutor, Richard Waldron. Fast forward to 1999 Richard found us out on our own farm and since then we have regularly had french students for their 'stage' or work experience. Richard is a bit of a legend at ESA Angers who sadly died a few years back, but has left his legacy at the college where all students are English word perfect to 'Puff the Magic Dragon'
It was great to finally visit the college and meet with Richard's replacement Claire and see where the students study. In true student fashion (!) I have cut and pasted all about the college in English. I'm actually feeling sightly guilty as our current student's exam this week wil be presenting 10 minutes in English about her farming experience in Devon...... now there's a Nuffield idea for the October conferance.



With its 2,630 students, the Groupe ESA is the largest institute of higher education for life sciences in France. It offers a wide range of courses in 10 major sectors of activity : farming, food, landscape management, environment, horticulture, viticulture, retailing, trade, agribusiness management and town & country planning.

Within the Groupe ESA, there are four institutions and four research laboratories :

A ‘grande école’, ESA

which awards undergraduate and post graduate degrees (including PhDs) and the typically French diploma ‘ingenieur’, which is traditionally a five year sandwich course punctuated with five work placements in industry, including a MSc type thesis.

A school of executive management, called ’Agricadre’

which offers a 2 year course in management and trade to students who have already done a minimum of two years university education ; it also offers the European Engineer Degree course in collaboration with Christeljike Agrarische Hogesschool, Dronten in the Netherlands.

An adult education centre for professional training offering

apprenticeship training, adult continuing education , and even distance learning (or correspondence courses).

A century old school :

ESA was founded in 1898 by Jesuits and representatives of the agricultural world. The school has been instrumental in the development of agriculture in northern and western France, the first region in Europe in the farming and the food industry sectors. Since the Jesuits left in 1970, the school has become a non-profitmaking organization managed by alumni, but closely controlled by the state.