MPs reject in committee the creation of “agricultural land investment groups”

The government suffered a setback, on the night of Friday May 3 to Saturday May 4 in committee at the Assembly, on its project to create “agricultural land investment groups” (GFAI). Amendments to delete this article from the agricultural bill were adopted by 24 votes to 16. It may however be reintroduced during the examination of the text in the hemicycle.

According to the executive, this measure is supposed to remove obstacles to the installation of new farmers. These groups must make it possible to raise money from public or private investors in order to buy land, and rent it to new farmers, then relieved of the need to finance the purchase.

“In the coming five to ten years, a large number of agricultural areas will become available and will change hands”justified the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, arguing that more and more land was leaving the family circle, and that new arrivals were facing difficulties in financing the purchase of land.

Faced with fears raised by an opposition coalition and certain Macronist elected officials, the general rapporteur of the text, Eric Girardin (Marne, Renaissance), had planned to submit a rewriting of the article to the deputies. He planned to insert more safeguards, in particular a period of ten years before the group could resell the land, to limit the phenomena of speculation. But a majority of deputies opted for the outright deletion of the article.

Fear of an “increase in the cost of agricultural land”

“The land priority would be to repair deregulation”declared the socialist deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle Dominique Potier, when his “rebellious” colleague from Seine-Saint-Denis Aurélie Trouvé castigated a “rogue article” Who “aims to kill family farming in favor of capitalist agriculture”.

“We are going to make farmers tenants for life of a production tool that they will no longer own”, judged for his part the deputy of Gironde National Rally Grégoire de Fournas. Francis Dubois (Corrèze, Les Républicains) and Charles de Courson (Marne, Libertés, independents, overseas and territories) both spoke of their fear of a “increase in the cost of agricultural land”.

“There is no intention of the government to deregulate land”defended the Minister of Agriculture, stressing that “the increase in [prix du] land is already existing ».

A new rewriting of the article could be proposed for the passage of the text in the Hemicycle, expected from May 14.

The rest of the examination of the bill, which is to continue on Saturday, had so far gone smoothly for the executive.

Earlier on Friday, MPs validated the creation of a new national Bac +3 level diploma to train for professions in agriculture and the agri-food industry. It would be proposed “jointly” by public higher education establishments and agricultural technical education establishments “public or private”.

Absence of tax measures

They also adopted a series of articles, in particular to clarify the missions of public technical agricultural education, which must provide modules on the agroecological transition or organic agriculture.

The deputies also approved guidelines to follow for public agricultural policies, with the non-binding objective of reaching at least 400,000 farms in the territory by 2035.

While many deputies deplored the absence of tax measures in the text, the government referring this question to the budgetary debates in the fall, several amendments included in the text an objective for the executive to reform taxation on transfer of agricultural property and land.

The creation of a “France services agriculture” network, a sort of departmental one-stop shop to bring together the necessary services to guide farmers who wish to settle in the territory, or on the contrary cease their activity, has also been approved.