What is the problem?
“In a territory which, over the past 50 years, has lost half of its useful agricultural area, the question of access to land is crucial.” This is the clear observation drawn up by the Land Development and Rural Establishment Company (Safer) in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. Responsible by the State for supervising the sale of each m² of land in natural and agricultural zones, the organization is sounding the alarm in the face of a constant decline in cultivated areas.
Because the food sovereignty of our region is at stake. “In the Alpes-Maritimes, there are around a thousand farms. The department has barely 1% food autonomy. If tomorrow there is a major health crisis, we have very, very few reserves to feed the local population.”notes Thomas Barralis, Côte d’Azur director of Safer.
Culprit No. 1: unbridled urbanization, mainly on the coast. “Under the concrete, the land is, in fact, no longer cultivablehe insists. But also a form of agricultural abandonment in remote rural areas, where agricultural land that is less easy to work, often not irrigated, becomes natural spaces again for lack of buyers.”
Enable future farmers not to miss opportunities
To try to stop the bleeding, Safer launched a few days ago Advertisement alerta free online tool to facilitate a fundamental step in the project of future farmers: field research.
“People who want to settle down and who are not taking over a family farm often struggle to find one. The system allows them to enter 5 preferred municipalities and receive an alert as soon as a call for applications for land is launched there”explains Thomas Barralis.
Objective? Simplify, at least in part, the obstacle course represented by a project to settle as a farmer in Paca: “search for land but also administrative and financial constraints, training to be completed…”
Fresh, the tool will have to wait a few more months to produce its first results. In Paca, Safer is banking in particular on this facilitator of opportunities to try to at least maintain the number of existing agricultural operations.
“For the years to come, this is a real challenge because a large part of the active agricultural population is over 56, we will have to find buyers”lucidly warns the Riviera manager.
Remove other obstacles to installation
For future land workers, however, there remain other mountains to climb once the thorny stage of land research has been completed. That of financing is particularly high on our shores.
“On the coast, in alluvial plains like those of Var and Siagne, prices are around €300,000 per hectare. While for the high country, an alpine pasture for sheep range, for example, will cost in €800 per hectare. That’s the big difference!”recognizes Thomas Barralis.
To put together his financial project, the manager reminds that up to 40 years old, project leaders can benefit from the Young Farmer Grant. Issued by the Chambers of Agriculture, the envelope can amount in certain areas to several tens of thousands of euros.
In order to fight against a price of agricultural land twice the national average and the speculation it causes, the land association Terre de Liens also offers the use of citizen financing to help farmers in their purchase project.
In Paca, the association, via its real estate company, thus acquired “21 farms, including 6 in 2022”, indicates its latest annual report.
Are you planning to set up as a farmer in the Var or the Alpes-Maritimes and would like to share your journey with us? Write to us at solutions@nicematin.fr