To facilitate the renewal of generations of farmers, agricultural land must be preserved and the law quickly changed, the national federation of land regulation bodies (Safer) warned on Tuesday during a press conference.
More than ever, we must preserve agricultural land (…). Yet sales of land intended for urbanization are at their highest for ten years, despite all control policies, alerted its president, Emmanuel Hyest.
Last December, Parliament adopted a bill brought forward by LREM deputy Jean-Bernard Sempastous, the first step to better regulate access to agricultural land in the face of the appetites of investment companies.
The latter now have two-thirds of the useful agricultural area, to the detriment of the French model of family farms, he warned.
Escaping administrative controls such as those of Safer, they contribute through their sale of shares and other operations to the expansion of plots rather than their takeover by new entrants.
According to Emmanuel Hyest, the very high concentration of agricultural land presents a risk, particularly in the livestock sector, with difficulties in selling large farms in the milk or organic sector.
There is an issue of occupation of the territory, of the resilience of the farms, and we saw it during the crisis: it is not the size that makes the resilience, he noted during the presentation of the report annual rural land markets.
In the space of half a century, the number of farms has decreased by 76% to reach 389,500 in 2020, while their average surface area has been multiplied by 3.6.
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The president of the National Federation of Safers also confirmed the existence of an urban exodus phenomenon in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic, which is revitalizing certain rural areas, but also driving up prices with strong pressure. on young farmers.
The Safer (land development and rural settlement companies) are responsible for monitoring, on behalf of the state, transactions relating to land, meadows, vines and forests.
They have helped around 1,500 new farmers to settle in 2021, most of them not from the agricultural world, in order to work for the renewal of increasingly aging farm managers, 60% of them. them being over 50 years old today.
The text voted on in December should be the first step in a major land law, long promised by Emmanuel Macron without having succeeded during his first five-year term, and which the agricultural unions are calling for.