In early december I had the opportunity to take part in the 2021 SFER (French Society of Rural Economics) in Toulouse just before the restriction hit. This was my first in-person conference since the beginning of the Pandemic and since 2018.
For the french speakers that would want to access the conference details and all the papers presented they are available: here
I submitted a paper for this conference which was reviewed and that I presented in a session on the landholding. The title of this paper was; Liberalized land market and gradual subsidy decoupling; competition between farms and challenge for the agro-ecological transition. A case study in different agricultural regions of Wales. You will find below the details on this paper:
Presenter: Théo Lenormand, PhD Candidate at CCRI. Future farm evolution in Wales
Co-Authors: Prof. Janet Dwyer, CCRI and Prof. Sophie Devienne, AgroParisTech
Abstract: Land is considered as the most important production factor in farming. Since the 1990s farm subsidies have been gradually decoupled from farm production in most European countries; it is widely recognized that it led to a capitalisation of the given subsidies in land. At a time when European countries are reflecting on their future agricultural policies (EU level and national) to try to transition their agriculture towards more sustainable production systems, we need to understand the possible challenges regarding access to farmland. To answer this question Wales is an interesting case-study, its subsidy decoupling was gradual (1992, 2003, 2013) while its tense land market was liberalized from 1995 in an extremely competitive farming environment. This created 3 successive competitive environments which influenced the choices of existing farming systems and actors of the land market. Two agrarian diagnosis realised in Wales, in a lowland and an upland territory give a different insight on those farm evolutions. The analysis of their differentiation and the selection that happened among them from 1992 will help understand how land markets participated to lock some farms into some path of evolution resulting in a less environmentally sustainable management. The economic analysis of different modelled farms will help us understand how land access can constitute a challenge to the adoption of more agro-ecological faming systems. The next farming policy in Wales looks set to focus on helping farm to move towards more sustainable system, there is a risk that if the land access component is not looked after the goal might only be reach by a selection of farms.
