Farming in France

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Get more information , if the land has a tenant you're stuck with him , are you financing from the UK? cos the french banks are skint.

Is the property in the Dordogne ?:whistle:
 

will l

Member
Arable Farmer
Hi guys

Apologies, first time poster here as it were. I have read through entire post (some time ago), and I could post a million questions and do have a great deal of research to do, but thought I'd pose a couple of quickies up for consensus. I'm not coming from a blinkered view of 'wow look at this property' as there would be a hell of a lot of due diligence, but want to just get some ideas on bits and pieces to maybe investigate further.

I would love to move over to France, and it's the only place my wife will consider moving to outside of the UK. We have young kids (4 yo and 18 months). Ideal world situation I would like 'some' land for the freedom etc. That said, I have a Degree in Ag from Harper, and whilst I don't work in agriculture now, my parents still farm and I've been brought up with that background.

There is a property on the market we fancy investigating further; nice house, old-style barns and 50+ acres of pasture with some woodland. From what I can see, cattle graze it currently - no idea on what arrangements that is done under; there is no mention of tenancy within the scant information. The property is on the market for a touch more than our UK house is valued at, with the potential to add a couple of bedrooms quite easily. As far as I can see it's being marketed as a house with pretensions rather than a farm - there's no mention of any subsidy/title anywhere that I can see either.

I currently work as a business/marketing consultant, predominantly from home. I had had the notion that if I plan block return trips to the UK I could potentially make it work, but as I come further along the line think this would be difficult. It might be possible, maybe it's a case of scaling back to just the clients with whom I know it can work... All that said, with maybe £60K 'extra' mortgage to cover on what we have now, can we we make that acreage return enough to move even if it is more of a subsistence life (If I was to say broadly in UK terms I think that would be a mortgage of sub-£1K/month still) I'm certainly not afraid of moving back to agriculture, and appreciate there is investment on that side of the business if we were to go that way.

I have a couple of ideas of a little niche tourism that we could investigate at a small scale to potentially help things along. What are the realities for a smaller scale farm operation such as that? My thoughts if we were considering in the UK would be the 'straight to market' route of value-adding from the product (lamb/beef on the grazing, pigs possibly in the woodland (if there are no truffles...). Does this stand in France or are there too many hurdles? As a very rough rule of thumb, how do the types of figures in Nix transpose to France (so I can do some fag packet calculations).

Apologies for the waffly, slightly indirect post, but I just want to get a feel for what may be possible.
To give you any idea you need to give us a rough location
 

will l

Member
Arable Farmer
There is a joke in french Q "why do the blackbirds fly upside down in the correze"
A "because there is no one to sh!t on"
It is the department to the east of the limousin it is quite high up so winters will be cold summers hot alot of granite in the soil 50 acres is not going to be worth installing on if it is grass It is a good long trip to limoges to get a plane better looking in the indre vienne or haute vienne for transport links
beware if britain does leave they may not accept british ag qualifications, livestock farming is not a part time job, i think you would want 100 hectares minimum to be viable, buy the house and buildings rent the land, best bet would be to learn french first and after if you are still interested contact the SAFER http://www.proprietes-rurales.com/fr/toutes_les_offres2.asp
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Probably wouldn't bother with John Nix's pocketbook then. If you are planning to carry on with your work I would say location with relation to airports/stations is the key thing. I would make sure you are within easy driving distance of at least two, as the likes of Ryanair have a habit of dropping and starting routes. You won't make a full time living out of 50 acres with or with out B & B or similar, unless its fruit trees or an established vineyard.
 

Muppetdave

New Member
Thanks for the feedback, yes I agree on the proximity to airports. As I said in my post though, it's a case of looking at not necessarily supporting through my existing business - but from what you've said it's not going to be a great area to look at it by the sounds of it...
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Thanks for the feedback, yes I agree on the proximity to airports. As I said in my post though, it's a case of looking at not necessarily supporting through my existing business - but from what you've said it's not going to be a great area to look at it by the sounds of it...

Don't get me wrong it's a very nice area, but grass growing here is nothing like the UK so you need a lot more land than you would in the UK. We are about a cow to the ha here and that's sucklers, and some years you can end up feeding more forage in the summer than the winter.
 

Muppetdave

New Member
Don't get me wrong it's a very nice area, but grass growing here is nothing like the UK so you need a lot more land than you would in the UK. We are about a cow to the ha here and that's sucklers, and some years you can end up feeding more forage in the summer than the winter.

No that's cool, that's the picture I'm trying to get, so really helpful thanks.
 

c'est pas vrai

New Member
muppetdave
if you're under 40 and willing to fill out forms you will get lots of help including zero % loans, installation grants etc etc... if your wife starts a business there is a cheap loan for female entrepreneurs too.
french-farm-grants.com carries a database and information on how and where to apply.
good luck.
 

Muppetdave

New Member
muppetdave
if you're under 40 and willing to fill out forms you will get lots of help including zero % loans, installation grants etc etc... if your wife starts a business there is a cheap loan for female entrepreneurs too.
french-farm-grants.com carries a database and information on how and where to apply.
good luck.
Thanks for the info, most interesting!
 

will l

Member
Arable Farmer
muppetdave
if you're under 40 and willing to fill out forms you will get lots of help including zero % loans, installation grants etc etc... if your wife starts a business there is a cheap loan for female entrepreneurs too.
french-farm-grants.com carries a database and information on how and where to apply.
good luck.
Out of interest which grants have you applied for and got, and what were your experiences of the french system and are you marketing what you produce and if so how and which part of france are you installed in,
thanks
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
:scratchhead::scratchhead:
muppetdave
if you're under 40 and willing to fill out forms you will get lots of help including zero % loans, installation grants etc etc... if your wife starts a business there is a cheap loan for female entrepreneurs too.
french-farm-grants.com carries a database and information on how and where to apply.
good luck.

I thought one of the points of the eu was to create a level playing field:scratchhead:
 

c'est pas vrai

New Member
Out of interest which grants have you applied for and got, and what were your experiences of the french system and are you marketing what you produce and if so how and which part of france are you installed in,
thanks
Will
The grants are no free lunch you have to invest too. Finding your own 60% of the project costs can be difficult. With 3 grants mounting to more than €50k of grants for planting and construction my 60% investment is €75k.

The french grant system does as it says, supports the health and welfare of the local rural community. Grants are apportioned locally so any application has an immediate advantage. But you need to prove the business case.

On "level playing field" comments in the UK the average payment per ha is €230 while france is €296. France pays in more and tops up grant programs with govt money too.
 

will l

Member
Arable Farmer
Will
The grants are no free lunch you have to invest too. Finding your own 60% of the project costs can be difficult. With 3 grants mounting to more than €50k of grants for planting and construction my 60% investment is €75k.

The french grant system does as it says, supports the health and welfare of the local rural community. Grants are apportioned locally so any application has an immediate advantage. But you need to prove the business case.

On "level playing field" comments in the UK the average payment per ha is €230 while france is €296. France pays in more and tops up grant programs with govt money too.
Have you done this yourself?
Are you installed on an "exploitation agricole"?
In what region are your facts and figures based?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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