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This article focuses on the milk strike of 2009. By looking back on the emergence of the movement in Lower Normandy, it aims to bring out the profile of the stock breeders who led it. The survey of the organizers of the strike reveals careers which rarely cross the path of the leading circles of professional agricultural organizations. Centered on the technical and/or economic development of their farms, these stock breeders have long stayed away from the decision-making circles. This case thus illustrates the disconnect in rural areas between economic and political capital. the use of a tool of historical analysis – the moral economy of Edward P. Thompson – brought us to such a conclusion. Connecting a historical concept and a sociological study, the article illustrates lastly the interest of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of rural movements.