Sunday, February 24, 2008

Definition of a Farmer, En Francais

Dirk Beauregard posts on the definition of a french farmer. Contrary to the title, the post is in English. Some interesting statistics included as part of the definition--income from agricultural produce must be at least 25 percent of the value of the farm. (I wonder whether that works for the U.S.--let's say an acre of Iowa land produces 150 bushels times $3 = $450 but it's worth $4500??) Interesting issue for an economist.

The existence of an official definition fits the conception of France as a very bureaucratized country, but they have more agriculture in proportion than the U.S.

Closer to a bureaucrat's heart--the French ag ministry has 40,000 employees for maybe 400,000 official farmers. USDA has maybe 100,000 for 1-2 million farmers (depending on the definition). That's misleading, because each ministry would have different responsibilities, etc.

Also interesting--apparent French farmers are members of a corporation that provides social security and health insurance?

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