André Voisin

André Marcel Voisin (7 January 1903 – 21 December 1964) was a French biochemist, farmer and author best known for developing the theory of Rational Grazing (also known as Voisinism, Voisin Grazing or Rational Intensive Grazing).

He also lectured extensively on his theories in many parts of the world.

His books have been translated into 18 languages and reprinted many times.

Voisin was born on 7 January 1903 in Dieppe, a coastal community in the Upper Normandy region of France.

His parents were Albert Voisin and Marie Antoinette Morthe Legendre, well known farmers and landholders.

He undertook his primary and secondary studies in Dieppe at the Jehan Ango school, beginning in 1910, and subsequently at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.

He undertook his military service with the French navy in 1923, graduating as a lieutenant.

In 1924 he graduated with a diploma of biochemistry from the School of Physics and Chemistry, école supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris.

Following his graduation from the School of Physics and Chemistry, Voisin worked as an engineer in the rubber industry, initially in a tyre factory.

He subsequently took on a senior engineering role in the firm SIT, and developed a method for improving the efficiency of production techniques.

In 1936 he attended the University of Heidelberg in order to improve his ability with the German language.

He received his diploma for a thesis entitled "Goethe and France", and was named an Honorary Citizen of the city of Heidelberg.

At the outbreak of war in September 1939, Voisin quit his position in the rubber industry to join the war effort.

He was initially stationed with the French Navy in Algeria.

He was involved in two naval missions in the Mediterranean during 1939, being seriously injured in the second.

After initial treatment in Algiers, he spent four months in the Val-de-Grâce hospital in Paris.

In 1940 he undertook several ground engagements in France, and was also involved in the Narvik Campaign.

Prior to the Fall of France, Voisin was ordered to evacuate to England.

He and a small contingent of men crossed the English Channel from Cherbourg-en-Cotentin in a daring boat journey lasting several days.

Once in England, Voisin met with Admiral Thierry d'Argenlieu and was made Secretary Attaché to Admiral Émile Muselier, leader of the Free French Naval Forces.

In October 1940, Voisin returned to occupied France to administer his family farm, "Le Talou", a 130 ha estate in Gruchet, south of Arques-la-Bataille.

From 1941 to 1944 he assisted the Resistance by secretly arranging deliveries of food produced on the farm.

He also acted as a translator for the mayor, Albert Thoumyer, in dealings with the Nazi occupiers.

Voisin married Marthe-Rosine Fernagu in occupied Paris during 1943.

In March 1943, he advocated successfully to save a farmer from the firing squad.

After the liberation of Paris in August 1944, Voisin left Le Talou in the care of his wife and travelled to Paris to meet with Admiral d'Argenlieu.

Lieutenant Voisin was assigned a regiment of marine infantry and was then involved in several campaigns with the Free French forces, notably the short-lived but intense Battle of the Vosges in October.

He was injured again in Benfeld.

Towards the end of 1945, having fulfilled his duty to his country, Voisin returned to Gruchet to pursue his true passion of farming.

Voisin would derive great pleasure simply from observing his cattle graze the sward.

He noticed differences between the action of a grazing cow versus mowing and feeding hay.

Whereas a sward mown for hay is all cut at essentially the same time, a grazed pasture is only cut as fast as the herd is able to eat it.

Likewise while a feedlot cow may eat as much as she wants without moving, a pastured cow must both walk to a desirable part of the pasture, and then shear the grass with her teeth one mouthful at a time.

Over time he came to the realisation that existing theories of grazing did not accurately describe the conditions of a grazing animal.

In an attempt to follow the scientific method, researchers would focus on the growing of grass (without grazing animals), or the feeding of cut grass to animals in feedlots, but very rarely the behaviour of cattle grazing on pasture.

Voisin realised that this relationship – which he called "the meeting of cow and grass" – was fundamentally different to either action performed in isolation.

These realities led Voisin to the realisation that time is critical.

It is not the number of animals per acre, but the time which plants are exposed to animals which is the chief determinant of overgrazing.

In 1946 Voisin published his memoirs of the war, based on his war diaries, under the title A Single Foot on the Earth.

It was illustrated by the official Navy artist, Commander Luc-Marie Bayle