What should we do about the emptiness of the french countryside ?

In 1945, there were 2.5 million farms employing 10 million workers. Today, there are barely 500,000 farms and 900,000 workers. This social upheaval has created a void in the countryside which has not been filled by second homes and sporting pastimes. This landscape is the result of the post-war agricultural policy in which the FNSEA (Fédération nationale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles : National Federation of farming trade unions) was actively involved. From the very beginning, this federation was more concerned with agricultural self-sufficiency than with the best ways of exploiting agricultural areas. It encouraged agricultural industrialisation, the development of rational chains of activity and an intense search for ways to increase productivity per hectare and per animal. All these concepts are to be found in the Common Agricultural Policy. Because this policy has not succeeded, it is important that we urgently consider a potential sustainable development policy for rural areas as well as a policy to improve relations between town and countryside. Gilles Luneau, author of Une histoire de la FNSEA, the first book of its kind, invites us to do just that.