Producers of corn beans are looking for labor. The treasurer of the Béarn corn bean producers’ association, Hervé Hustet, will be the guest on ICI Béarn Bigorre on Sunday, March 29, 2026.
The producers of corn beans are in search of labor. To discuss this issue, the treasurer of the Béarn corn bean producers’ association, Hervé Hustet, will be a guest on ICI Béarn Bigorre on Sunday, March 29, 2026. “Corn beans have been introduced in Béarn for hundreds of years,” he explains. “It comes from the Aztecs, dating back quite far. It is a white bean that climbs, needing support, and today that support is corn, so they are planted at the same time, in the same row, the bean and the corn. The two plants grow symbiotically, it’s a small crop found in our Béarn region for generations.”
Manual harvesting, pod by pod
This culture is typical of Béarn. “This type of bean can be found elsewhere in France, for example, like Tarbais, but usually grown on nets, whereas the bean itself is a population that has been preserved for generations and is truly a typical bean of the region, Béarn.”
The production method is specific, requiring both a lot of time and labor. “There is a production specification sheet made by the association, so for the Béarn corn bean, the production is done without any chemical products. For example, weeding must be done manually or mechanically. And most importantly, the harvest is manual, either fresh or dry, but the peculiarity of the bean is that the pods do not ripen at the same time, so it is done gradually on the same plant. Therefore, you must regularly pass every 2 to 3 days to pick the pods that are ready. It’s not extremely physical work, but it takes time, especially at harvest time, starting from September.”
“An exponential increase in demand”
Today, there are fewer and fewer corn bean producers as the demand increases. “Bean cultivation is neglected, resulting in a gradual loss of producers each year. While we are able to gain new ones, it doesn’t compensate, so we have an overall decrease in surface area, parallel to this decrease, we have an exponential increase in demand. This leads to a shortage of beans today, which is damaging because clients, especially fine dining restaurants, if they can no longer find this product, they will turn to other options and then it becomes very difficult to come back.”
The goal is to find at least twenty producers in the next three years, as it requires no specific qualifications. “It requires, I would say, a bit of motivation, but it’s like anything, and it only requires a plot of land. There is no need for vast areas, just a plot of land in Béarn, since, as specified in the production specifications, the Béarn corn bean can only be grown in Béarn.”
