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Agriculture is a vital element in the Vanoise.
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Agricultural
and pastoral life
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It
is organised around and depends on the melting of the snow, following
which the terraced pastures can be used for livestock grazing. Milk
is the primary bi-product of this system. There is however, a significant
difference in the way in which work is organised in the Maurienne
and the Tarentaise, the two Vanoise valleys.
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PNV / Patrick Folliet |
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the Tarentaise valley, the agricultural system is based on the "common
fruit" tradition where the village farmers confide all their
herds to the same alpine shepherd. The large size of these herds made
the production of cheese rounds such as the Beaufort cheese possible;
the large size of these rounds guarantees their conservation. In the
Maurienne valley, the alpine pastures are managed by the family that
occupies the chalet in the summer. All of these tasks are still carried
out today. The structures that we can see in the pastures - chalets,
barns, halls, milk cellars, "arbés" (small roofless
structures made of stone; shepherds placed temporary roofs on these
structures when they came to make the Beaufort cheese), etc. - tell
the story of the alpine shepherds' activity during the hundred days
of mountain herding. |
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