Keeping life on the land - self-reliance or state support?

Friday, December 5, 2014

Comparing the French and German agricultural models reveals cracks in the policy of maintaining full time family farming in remote rural areas

by NORMAN DUNN

It's not surprising that most British farmers who decide to try their luck in another part of the European Union choose France. Not only does agriculture in France reflect the U.K. structure with a majority of mixed livestock/crop enterprises, farming there also still has the comfortable feel of Europe 20 or more years ago with extra state support to help in problem areas.

This does not mean it hasn't got its share of ultra-modern, extremely efficient agri-enterprises. In fact, France is actually the European leader in farm production value with 19 per cent of total output representing €75.4 billion (C$107 billion) in 2012 compared to the average in European Union (EU) member-country average of $20.7 billion.

But European economists warn that France is heading for trouble because its agri-policies are "too social" – based on ensuring a decent livelihood for smaller farmers, often compensating them for staying in comparatively remote regions. This means tractor diesel is the equivalent of at least 36 cents a litre cheaper for the French farmer than the norm elsewhere in western Europe. This policy also includes specific support payments, at least in part, for beef cows and sheep in difficult farming areas instead of the nowadays usual single farm payments. France's main aim here is to encourage livestock on farms where this is often the only enterprise that will work.                                 

                 
A look across the river Rhine highlights a completely different approach. Germany is number two in the EU farm production league with $80 billion, or 13.8 per cent of total EU agricultural output, while managing this with 40 per cent less farmland than its big neighbour. Farms are about the same size on average in both countries – around 135 acres. But Germany has not tipped the scales in rural support to help the more remote areas. What it has done with great success is encourage industry to move into the countryside and keep population there stable by providing alternative employment. This is why almost 50 per cent of German farmers register as part-time. The respective figure for France is not even 15 per cent.

The part-time approach also helps rural infrastructure. Small industries in the villages mean higher tax revenues for the communities, meaning more schools, stores in most villages and continual maintenance of at least existing highway and railroad networks. Another job for the farmer and his or her family also forces tighter organization back on the farm, reckoned to be one of the main reasons why the average German farm tends to specialize in poultry, pigs, vegetables or, nowadays, biogas from energy crops.

In France, there are naturally plenty of specialist farming businesses, too. Just think of wine or Roquefort cheese production. Also, the large-scale wheat-growing enterprises in the Champagne region help ensure that the proportion of farms over 250 acres is, in fact, higher in France than Germany (18 per cent against 11 per cent). But there's still a greater tendency to stay with "old-fashioned" mixed cattle, sheep and crop enterprises in France. For "mixed" read more labour-intensive and often less profitable at the end of the day.

France's formula for keeping the countryside alive with mixed farms run by the family, with all the richness and diversity this can bring to rural life, is arguably more attractive than the Germany strategy. The latter can, after all, represent eight hours a day in a factory and almost all of what's left stuck in the hog barn, or out on the fields. In reality, though, the German solution is proving much more successful. Average output from each of the 300,000 farms there, based on the (latest available) 2012 retail prices, is around 25 per cent more than that for each of France's half million farms.

Still more disappointing, the French social plan is not only losing production, it is also failing in its primary aim of keeping people on the land. The latest census results show that the percentage of farmers under 35 years in both countries is about the same, at between seven and nine per cent. At the other end of the scale, though, close to 13 per cent (65,000) of French farmers are still in charge at 65 years of age or older. The figure for Germany is just 5.3 per cent.

It's clear that the youngsters in many French rural areas have high-tailed it for the town. Yet another blow to what was once the European ideal. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.