RURALITIC friendship book: Lucie Chatelain
Remember those friendship books from school where you collected fun facts about your friends? We asked the researchers at RURALITIC to fill in a project “friendship book” to help make our scientists and their research more visible.
We are kicking things off by putting our newest project member Lucie in the spotlight!
Lucie, please introduce yourself and tell us about yourself. Who are you? Where do you work?
My name is Lucie Chatelain and I work at Chambre d’Agriculture in France. My field of research in a couple of key terms is: social sciences, agricultural public policies and generational renewal in agriculture.
What is your expertise and what do you work on within RURALITIC?
During my six-month internship, until the end of September 2026, I am working almost entirely on Task 4 of Work Package 8 on farmers’ and employees’ well-being. My work focuses on identifying stress factors and planning the pilot project within the network of “Chambers of Agriculture”.
What is a research paper/book you wish everyone would read?
The book, Une agriculture sans agriculteurs by sociologists, François Purseigle and Bertrand Hervieu. Agriculture Without Farmers argues that farming in France is undergoing a deep transformation: the traditional family farm model is disappearing and being replaced by large agribusiness structures. The authors analyse how demographic decline, economic pressures and environmental challenges are reshaping rural life, and warn that society still imagines agriculture through an outdated vision of independent farmers.
What is a term that you often use, and what does it mean?
“We have discovered, in good politics, the secret of starving those who, by cultivating the land, feed others.” By French writer and philosopher, Voltaire. It reflects my commitment to an agriculture that takes better care of the women and men who make it possible every day.
What is a question you currently try to answer?
How can we better support farmers’ well-being and make agriculture more attractive for future generations?
What is skill you wish you had (scientific or otherwise)?
Conducting interviews: I’m a good listener and really interested in people and their stories.
If you were not a researcher, what would your profession be?
Journalist.
Where is your happy place?
In the countryside on a bike.
Who is someone who influenced your path?
François Purseigle – professor of sociology at the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse, Head of the Economic, Social and Management Sciences Department at the National Higher School of Agronomy of Toulouse (INP-ENSAT).
Follow RURALITIC on BlueSky and LinkedIn to stay tuned for the next researcher in the spotlight.