A young advocate who quit her day job in the city to establish a beekeeping farm has launched a petition to subsidise the transformation of several hectares of arable land into an organic flower pasture.
Elodie Duca, 31, handed in her letter of resignation at the renowned lawyer’s office she had been working for in Paris in 2020 to set up Jardin d’Elo, her own organic apiary in the small town of Beaupuy in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, southern France.
Today Elodie and her partner Samuel manage 75 hives. Now Elodie has launched a petition to gather financial support for her latest endeavour: turning four hectares of ploughland situated in the direct vicinity of her farm into an organic flower field.
At the crowdfunding platform helloasso, Elodie has raised EUR 6,795 (GBP 5,980) of the EUR 5,000 (GBP 4,308) she was hoping for.
The fundraising initiative, which is now closed, can be found at helloasso.com.
Elodie – who sells honey but also products such as beeswax candles and soap online – said: “Supporting bees is getting harder each year whereas saving European dark bees is even harder. There are so many obstacles.”
The European dark bee is a subspecies of the western honeybee. Originating from central Asia, the insect started to migrate to Europe in 9,000 BC.
Elodie identified pesticides, one-crop agriculture, climate change, parasites and the spreading of the Asian hornet as the biggest challenges for honeybees and the various undomesticated pollinators.
She explained: “Extreme weather conditions such as last summer’s heatwaves further reduce their sources of nutrition. However, pollinators are essential to the preservation of our ecosystem.
“Please help us to further support local pollinators by turning four hectares of conventional arable land into a richly diversified flowering meadow.”
