“Farming is not just a man’s job. A woman can be strong physically and mentally to run a farm.” This is the main message that the Compiègnoise Amandine Delaplace25 years old, in the running for the title of Miss France Agricultural 2025. While she was planning to become a sales assistant, she opened a educational farm in the Somme four years ago.
She is one of the twenty finalists in the national competition, the results of which will be revealed on Saturday December 14. The same day as Miss France. “There will be a live on Facebook,” she presumes. This competition takes place only on social networks. She won her place in the final thanks to Internet users’ votes. The jury will choose the winner from the videos posted online.
“My family bought a farm in Dominois in the Sumthirty minutes from Abbeville,” explains the farmer. An area in which she created an educational farm called l’Arche d’Amandine. “I made my passion my profession,” she explains. We take in so-called “rescue” animals. These are animals from breeding, circuses… to whom we offer a new life.”
Animal mediation
Goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits, llamas, and even a zebu… live on the estate. There is even a parrot named Kiwi, 4 years old. “He’s my companion for life,” she said. He has a life expectancy of 80 years.
Amandine Delaplace also develops the concept of animal mediation: “I connect my animals with children in difficulty or people suffering from disabilities. I unite two broken hearts into one.”
Amandine Delaplace is aware – or at least, some have made it clear to her – that she was not considered a farmer in the conventional sense. “I don’t feed humans, it’s true, but I feed souls,” she believes. And I’m not from the industry. I don’t have farming parents or diplomas.”
His mother collected horses in Jaux
Patricia, Amandine’s mother, had been collecting horses on her property in Jaux for thirty-five years. “I grew up around horses,” remembers Amandine. She moved with her daughter to the Somme to help her with this educational farm project. His brother Nicolas takes care of the gîte and the guest rooms and his sister Angélique manages the social networks.
After completing a professional baccalaureate at the Mireille-Grenet high school, she started a BTS in tourism at the Charles-de-Gaulle high school. She realized that office life was not for her during her first professional experience at Verberie.
“This is the third time I am running,” she recalls, very motivated by the idea of representing French agriculture. She concludes: “You can be feminine and a farmer.”
