8 February 2011

France today has 300,000 professional farmers. However, this figure may fall to 100,000 by 2030. A few days before the NFU in Britain announced its support for Apprenticeship week to attract newcomers to farming, a new green political party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, organised a conference on Tuesday (1 Feb) focusing on creating a policy to counter the ageing demographic trend in farming. The solution arrived at by the symposium was to engage young people and attract a diverse range of fresh talent to agriculture.

 For François Calvet, regional councillor of the Midi- Pyrénées and a grower himself, it is imperative to question representatives on the issue at stake: ‘avoiding rural deserts.’ Calvet explained, “The issue for representatives shouldn’t be creating an AMAP (collective farm) or establishing organic food in eateries, even if that gets them elected, but to support rural people on the land.” Calvert’s views were supported by Mickaël Poillion, of the Young Farmers, who was invited to participate in the conference. Poillion said, “Influencing farmers is well and good, but we must also influence our representatives.”

Beware of over-simplistic reactions 

Europe Ecologie-Les Verts are also worried by “ever-expanding farms with fewer neighbours.” The debate over peasant farming and agroecological methods versus industrial farming divided the assembled farmers. Socio-economist Jean Pluvinage warned those attending the symposium, “beware of over simplistic reactions; the question of expansion is often a matter of economic survival for a large number of farmers.” Pluvinage recommended moves towards “a policy to manage the expansions collectively and reasonably.”

Mickaël Poillion sought to reunite the farmers, saying “this sort of debate is important and as such should be as open as possible, I don’t want to have two opposed models, with large cultivations on one side and community agriculturalists on another. We must work together on our land and seek economic leverage to encourage cooperation.”