New farmers, it’s “The word of the eco” this week. It would take a lot to take the place of the former farmers. Everyone has been sounding the alarm for years.
New farmers, yes, it would take a lot to replace the old farmers in France. Agriculture lacks hands, and this alert was launched a few years ago.
franceinfo: This lack of farmers amounts to how much?
Guillaume Gaven: They were 2.5 million farmers in 1955, 760,000 in the year 2000, and less than 500,000 today. Fewer farmers, but larger farms: 42 hectares on average in the year 2000, 69 hectares today. Because the useful agricultural area remains stable; a little less than half of France is covered with fields.
As for the farmers, to come back to them, they are getting older and older. Nearly half, 200,000, are likely to retire within 10 years. Last figure, to finish brushing the situation, there are each year 20,000 farm managers who retire, and 14,000 who settle. In short, we are far from the mark, and we will have to do something.
Is this new?
What is new is that it is said that there are not enough farmers. Because for a long time, notes the Court of Auditors, the public authorities encouraged this decline in the active agricultural population, to support the modernization of the sector. Clearly, fewer farmers, but larger, more modern, more efficient farms. That, obviously, is over. With the Covid, we realized the weakness of our agricultural model and the importance of food sovereignty.
So what can be done to improve the situation?
Well, it was the Senate that took up the subject, and commissioned a report from the Court of Auditors. A report on the settlement policy for new farmers, published this week. We learn a lot of things, starting with the fact that the current system does not work very well.
Thus, installation aid is reserved for young farmers, those who are under 40 years old. The problem is twofold: firstly, half of those who could ask for these aids, do not do so, then a third of the installations are made by people who are over 40 years old. Neo-farmers in full retraining, who are therefore entitled to nothing, or almost.
“These candidates have their own funds, innovative ideas and have interesting projects”, notes the Court of Auditors. Gold, “they can only claim 9% of public aid devoted to installation”. The Court of Auditors therefore recommends remedying this age ax. It would not cost the community that much, at the rate of 25,000 euros per installation, it would represent 125 million euros for 5,000 people, but the credits allocated to the installation are currently oversized.