フランス農村における社会農業構造の変貌 : 比較農村社会学的視点によるブルッ村の分析

Abstract

The number of family farmers in France one of the major agricultural producers in Europe - declined quite drastically in the 1990's. Compared with the beginning of 1980's, the end of 1990's saw the socio-agrarian structure of many rural communities transformed. There are two purposes to this study. The first one is to analyze how the socio-agrarian structure of France's rural community was transformed in the 1970's and 1990's and to clarify to what degree this transformation was and is affected by French agricultural policies. The second one is to describe what the villagers thought and felt about this transformation from their own experience and viewpoints. In the recent new wave of rural studies, villagers have described their own society and life in books such as Paroles et Parcours de Paysans : Nous avons cru au progress written by G.R.E.A.in 1996. The authors adopt this new approach to the study of French rural communities based on the paroles of the villagers themselves to verify the recent social transformation. In 1999 the authors chose one ordinary village called Brux, a village of 687 inhabitants, which is located in the central eastern part of the Region Poitou-charents in southwestern France. The number of farmers in Brux declined from 93 in 1978 to 30 in 2000. The number of professional farmers also declined from 58 in 1978 to 20 in 2000. In the interviews, it is clear that most of them preferred to retire from agriculture using the new pré-retraite (early retirement) system. Because of this subsidy, many farmers became retirees living on pension and receiving ground rent. As a result, the majority of villagers are now retirees, not farmers. The reduction in the number of active farmers has actually led to an increase in the average size of Brux farm. It is clear that the socio-agrarian structure in Brux has been transformed over the past two decades. The transformation of the socio-agrarian stsucture of Brux can be summarized as follows: 1) The number of family farmers declined drastically in the 1980's to 1990's. (French agricultural policies led many farmers to take early retirement.) The average farm roughly doubled in size. 2) Specialized farmer or farm manager cannot be seen as peasants in any traditional sense but as managers of an agricultural enterprise. Most family farms changed into large scale agricultural enterprises (E.R.R.L) or agricultural community groups(GAEC), 3) Traditional crops in Brux were replaced by maize and new oleaginous crops such as rape and sunflower. Many traditional mixed farming farmers became large cereal farmers. 4) Most of the inhabitants of the village are retirees. Agriculture is no longer the central concern of village life. Village life has lost much of its energy. The most important goal or focus of the village today is to animate and motivate the community through cultural and social promotions based on the community's traditional identity and history. 5) The irrigated farming system based on pumped up underground water has changed the image of French farming from being one that in harmony with the environment to one that is considered a factor in environmental destruction.