French suckler farms are among the most extensive in the European community

Abstract

The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, adopted on May 21 1992, by the EEC Agriculture Ministers, aimed at reducing the production amounts and in the beef sector at encouraging more appropriate land-use by distributing subsidies according to the level of stock density. Thus, stock density, which has been a technical indicator, is becoming a tool for agricultural policies. In this new context, we decided to study the cattle farms of the different European countries using this indicator. This analysis used the Farm Accounting Data Network and the 1991 census, which was based on 1 405 000 extrapolated cattle farms, and gave a good representation of the agricultural picture. Cattle farms are classified into four production types (« suckler », « dairy », « suckler and dairy » and « no cow »), according to their composition of dairy and suckler cattle, and five levels of herbivore stock density are recognized. In the countries of northern Europe, the extensive farms have greater useful agricultural and forage surface areas than the intensive farms. In contrast, they have smaller herds and so produce, on average, lower gross outputs with appreciably lower incomes. In the countries of southern Europe, cattle farms generally are of a very small size, so the impact of the stock density is difficult to evaluate. Compared to the other European countries, the French suckler farms are more extensive. Their stock density is, on average, 1.23 herbivore GCU per hectare of MFA in contrast to 1.45 in the EEC.