The salt worker's trade: training that's unique in the world
Ouest-France went out to meet the salt workers of Guérande to reveal all the secrets of this profession, from training to practice. Damien Bersihand shares his experience as an apprentice and then as a salt worker in the heart of the Guérande salt marshes. Every year, dozens of apprentices join the team of experienced salt workers who share their passion and know-how with them.
Discover their very precise methods for harvesting salt, a true work of goldsmith.
Guérande. A training program unique in the Atlantic Arc
In Guérande, in the land of salt, the salt worker cooperative encourages future settlers to go through the Pays de la Loire Chamber of Agriculture training program. Supported from apprenticeship through to installation, new cooperative salt workers benefit from long-term follow-up.
In 1979, as the transmission of knowledge around the profession was being lost and the price of salt was falling under the influence of traders, salt workers from a group of Guérande salt producers set up a vocational training program for future salt workers. Today, the twelve-month training course at the ÉFEA (École de formation par l'expérience en agriculture) in La Turballe, enables its apprentices to obtain a BP REA Saliculture.
Since then, on the basis of the existing producers' group, the cooperative Les Salines de Guérande, was created in 1988. Today, it brings together 224 salt workers, each of whom owns shares in the cooperative.
No fewer than 14 teams, known as "chaussage", work each year to restore the saltworks and welcome trainees. Trainees are supported until they are able to make a decent living from their production, i.e. for around four years. With the support of an internship supervisor, apprentices are trained both in the technical aspects of the salt business and in farm management issues (accounting, drawing up contracts for seasonal workers, etc.).
On setting up, young salt workers can access the number of œillets they want from the very first year. Cooperative salt workers can rent salt marshes belonging to private owners and an agricultural landholding group, and the network set up by the cooperative enables marshes to be distributed according to demand and, in particular, the turnover of retirements.
Below pictured, Damien Bersihand and his former training master Yann Gouret in the Guérande salt marshes.
Training, Installation and Supervision
"The aim of our cooperative is for each member to make a decent living from his or her production, and the best way to integrate this is through training," explains Yann Gouret, a salt worker and member of Les Salines de Guérande.
Pooling resources
Managed by a board of directors, the cooperative offers many advantages for salt workers. Indeed, all resources are pooled: firstly, salt stocks, which are pooled, but also insured and secured, but also know-how and technical means. In this way, everyone works together, as salt workers are not in competition with each other. The price of salt is set each year by the Board of Directors, providing salt growers with a guaranteed purchase price and stable income.
The cooperative's profits are partly redistributed and partly reinvested. The Board of Directors is supported by a Managing Director and a team of 65 employees, strengthened by a partnership with L'ESAT de Lényphen where 20 people work permanently with the cooperative. "The cooperative works locally and seeks to extend its influence throughout the region. It's a real network where all the players on the marsh meet and exchange ideas," emphasizes Yann Gouret.
Damien Bersihand's view
Damien Bersihand, 28, completed the training in 2019 and set up in 2020 on 63 marshes.
"Following a season in the salt marshes, I had the opportunity to recover a saltworks. I was self-employed for two years, then decided to join the training course and the cooperative following my meeting with Yann, who became my training supervisor. The big advantage I saw was that I was able to set up in good conditions. It's a quality you can't find anywhere else.
Salt needs 18 months to dry, so the production from the first few years of the salt works can't be sold straight away. But the cooperative, through its pooling of stocks, enables us to be remunerated from the first year, an effort made by the older members for the younger ones. The cooperative provides the best income on the peninsula, and today my initial results are better than expected."
Credits: Ouest France
