Earlier in the year, there was an incident where French farmers surrounded Paris. Recently, French farmers have taken action again, confronting the French government. Nearly 7,000 farmers operated almost 2,000 agricultural machinery (such as tractors) on the A9 highway connecting southern France and Spain, directly blocking the road, and sprayed over ten tons of manure at the local government offices. This riot was led by the yellow agricultural association “Farmers’ Union” FNSEA, which is organized nationwide. It is definitely not a mutual aid organization of small producers; this is contrary to the narrowness of small-scale production. However, the participants in these riots are quite confusing. I previously thought they were wealthy farmers or agricultural capitalists, but do wealthy farmers or agricultural capitalists really resort to such radical means?
Recently, I found an article from 2015, which mentions that, according to official French data from 2010, only 1/4 of French “farmers” owned more than 80 hectares of land. However, the example given below is a large farm including 120 hectares of farmland and 30 hectares of pasture, yet its production method is small-scale, with a high degree of mechanization. This makes it even more strange.
Previously, I researched the development process of French agriculture and found a paper. Although written by bourgeois authors, it still provides some material. The transformation from small-scale peasant farming to capitalist large farms in France began during the De Gaulle era, when the “Agricultural Guidance Law” was enacted. Through low-price acquisitions, legislative expulsions, and other methods, small farmers and land were separated. In just eight years, the bourgeoisie annexed 1/4 of the country’s land. By 2009, when the article was published, large farms of over 100 hectares accounted for 10% of all farms and 40% of the agricultural land. Medium-sized farms of 50–100 hectares made up 17% of farms and 32% of land; small farms of 20–50 hectares accounted for 24% of farms and 21% of land; individual family farms of less than 20 hectares made up 49% of farms but only 7% of land. The degree of concentration was quite high, and the so-called “individual farms” had a relatively high proportion, which further supports the idea that the recent French farmers’ riots are mainly driven by these small farmers. I wonder if this can be used as evidence.
Apart from the issue of French farmers’ riots, when I read this article, it mentioned that De Gaulle’s government was frantically providing subsidies and low-interest loans to “farmers” to help them mechanize and electrify.
From July 1, 1948, to December 31, 1952, France issued a total of 50,911 billion francs in various agricultural engineering subsidies, including 1,233.9 billion francs from the Agricultural Modernization Equipment Fund issued by the national bank, with loan interest rates dropping from 7–8% to 3–4%. From 1960 to 1974, the agricultural loans provided through this method increased from 6 billion francs to 48 billion francs, a sevenfold increase. From 1952 to 1972, the growth rate based on the average capital used per agricultural worker was 8.3%, surpassing other economic sectors. To ensure continuous improvement in the quality and performance of agricultural machinery, the government directly intervened in the production and sales of agricultural production materials. All agricultural machinery sold in the French market had to hold national quality system certification and product sales permits, and machinery manufacturers had to guarantee spare parts supply even after ceasing production for 10 years.
I think these bourgeoisie certainly wouldn’t give small asset farmers any benefits, but why does the French government do this? At first, I thought they might be imitating their predecessors—namely, the financial bourgeoisie of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who exploited small farmers through high-interest loans. They were very eager to maintain the land ownership of these semi-dead farmers so they could extract more surplus value through loans. However, I couldn’t find any data on the debt ratio of French farmers. If not, why would these bourgeois governments subsidize agriculture?