online prize pools, sometimes “miraculous” support for operators in financial difficulty
“Without that, I would have lost everything. I would have ended up without a roof over my head.” In debt like many farmers, Jean-Christophe Bertrand could not find a way out before calling for the generosity of Internet users, who helped him save his farm. While a new movement of anger has shaken the agricultural sector since mid-November and attempts to draw attention to its difficulties, part of the profession is turning, like him, to online prize pools as a possible lifeline .
After a court decision at the beginning of June, Jean-Christophe Bertrand had less than a month to find 90,000 euros. In 2007, when he took charge of an organic cattle farm in Avesnois (North), he took out a loan to launch his business. Seventeen years later, the 67-year-old breeder, put in difficulty by a falling turnover and an increase in expenses, explained to franceinfo that he was no longer able to pay his debts. .
Threatened with judicial liquidation, he is on the verge of losing his house, his farm and his herd when his daughter has the idea of going to Leetchi, one of the main collaborative collection sites, to open a kitty. Photos, presentation text… With his help, the operator of the “organic limousine farm in distress” takes care of every detail of its announcement. In a few weeks, the“survival operation” is a success: it allows him to raise more than 78,000 euros and save his farm. Jean-Christophe Bertrand today considers this fundraising as a “miracle“.
His situation is not isolated, while 16% of agricultural households live below the monetary poverty line, according to the latest figures from INSEE. Leetchi currently lists nearly 4,000 ongoing prize pools intended for farmers, according to its marketing director Amandine Plas. Like many of its competitors, the platform was originally intended to “quickly collect money for birthdays, going away drinks or weddings”she explains. But after the 2015 attacks, the company observed “a new surge of generosity is coming to the aid of the victims’ families”. The practice has since expanded to support numerous causes and, according to Leetchi, solidarity fundraising now represents 20% of the prize pools on the site.
A trend that the agricultural world has seized on. In 2024, nearly 7,500 prize pools were created for farmers on this platform alone, and the amounts collected reached around 5 million euros, reports the Observatory of Generosities created by Leetchi and the Odoxa institute. “The turning point came in 2023, with more than 4 million euros raised for farmers“, reports Amandine Plas.
These cries for help are not always enough. On one’s last legs, Franck Nickles still has until December 24 to collect donations. In the space of four months, he received nearly 11,000 euros from 120 Internet users. At the same time, other donors came forward by sending him an additional 10,000 euros by check. But the amount remains far from that necessary to enable him to repay his debts.
In 2020, at the start of the health crisis, this farmer, at the head of the Trois Chênes Farm in Wintersbourg (Moselle), suffered the full brunt of the “disengagement from organic“. “We had anticipated a need for additional production, but Covid stopped everything and we found ourselves in debt of 100 000 euros”he remembers. Cornered by charges that continue to accumulate, he is unable to raise the sum requested by the courts as part of a recovery plan, and risks liquidation. Customers then advised him to turn to the internet.
“I didn’t have 36 solutions. If I had been in a normal banking situation, I would have taken out a loan.”
Franck Nickles, breederat franceinfo
Despite its only partial success, the prize pool helped the farmer regain hope. “We were pleasantly surprised. It allowed us to pay off a first year of debt with the kitty and our savings”confides Franck Nickles. Today, the organic farmer is in the middle of negotiations to try to obtain a postponement of his deadlines. “If our agent is not convinced and asks for the money tomorrow, it will be over for us”explains the one who hopes that this last minute fundraising will work in his favor with the justice system.
For these farmers in difficulty, calling for donations is a solution of last resort, sometimes experienced as an admission of vulnerability. “I come from a generation that learned to be independent. Asking for help was like giving alms, and it felt weird”confides Jean-Christophe Bertrand. “I did it because I no longer had a choice, I was up against the wall”.
This is also the feeling of Edouard Exilard, a sheep breeder whose clients took the initiative to open a kitty after the drowning of 30 of his lambs, carried away by a swollen stream. He thus received 12,000 euros which helped him to relaunch his activity.
“I didn’t want to beg, but I was in a bind.”
Edouard Exilard, breederat franceinfo
He believes that these fundraisers are often fueled by donors sensitive to sustainable agriculture, from which he was able to benefit: “Organic attracts more support, because we maintain biodiversity, we respect nature, animals and the consumer.” But if this kitty was of great help to him, Edouard Exilard judges that basing the survival of the farm on donations “is not a viable long-term solution.”
While his profession is mobilizing against the free trade treaty between the EU and Mercosur, but also against the precariousness of the sector, the sheep breeder hopes for “specific aid or incentive policies for the consumption of organic products”which he would see as recognition of his work. Franck Nickles also regrets having had to create a fund to maintain his activity. “Farmers should be able to get by without calling on solidarity. It is not normal for the survival of a farm to depend on fundraisinghe judges. If all the farmers in difficulty start throwing a kitty, it will be complicated.”
