La campagne de St Laurent

The evolution of the Saint-Laurent farm. As everywhere else in France, the number of farms in Saint-Laurent has continued to fall: 120 in 1914, 96 in 1951, 24 in 2007, 16 in 2025. The average size of a farm will be 66 hectares in 2025.

While the main activity remains mixed farming and livestock rearing, plant production has also become an important part of farming.
Original plant production. Pépinières Laurentaises (PDF-3) stands out for its production of ornamental trees, fruit trees and shrubs. They have taken over the oak collection of Daniel Bastard, one of Europe's leading oak specialists.

At the "Il était une graine" farm, Anne and Margot grow micro-pods full of flavour, colour and vitamins that will add a touch of class to your dishes (PDF-4).
Another company specialises in reproducing plants for nurserymen.

The CUMA du Jeu (photo 1). Set up in 1982, the Coopérative d'Utilisation du Matériel Agricole, based at Le Groseillier, is a service used by most farmers in Saint-Laurent, enabling members to control mechanisation costs.

The Bohardière poultry farm. When the poultry company founded in 1973 by Joseph Grelier was taken over by Hendrix Genetics in 2011, it had become Europe's leading turkey hatchery and breeder. The Grelier Group had hatcheries in France, Poland and Hungary. A laboratory, set up in 1998 on rue St-Eloi, is used for health monitoring and farm innovations.

When watermills ran on the river Jeu (photo 2). Along the 13km-long Jeu, 21 mills have been counted, an average of one every 600 metres.

Georges Samson recounts the history of these mills in his book Les familles de meuniers de la vallée du Jeu. Saint-Laurent had as many as seven flour mills, the last one to operate being the Vieille-Chaussée mill until November 1958.

Livestock farming in 2025.
Dairy cows: 3 farms with 220 head, one of which is organic (PDF-1)
Suckler cows: 5 farms with 440 head.
Goats: 1 farm with 350 head. (PDF-2)
Broiler poultry: 2 farms.