Business life

From 28 February to 7 March 2004, for the forty-first time, calves, cows, pigs, flocks of hens, etc. moved into the outskirts of Paris. SIA, the International Agricultural Show, attracts hundreds of thousands of French and international visitors every year, as well as livestock professionals and people working in the farm machinery industry. The theme of the 2004 show was "animals, land and men". For the French rural world, it is an opportunity to show the city-dweller an activity that is constantly changing and is vital to the survival of towns.

Although over 80% of France is rural, agricultural workers, which include those working in agricultural, fishing and forestry sectors, represent no more than 3.6% of France’s working population. Yet agriculture in France is responsible for 21.9% of its industrial turnover, a long way ahead of the car and aeronautical sectors [1]. This makes it easier to understand why the French authorities are so keen to promote and develop this sector. Indeed today, the number of farmers is steadily decreasing and the depopulation of rural areas is no longer a threat, but a reality.

This year, the authorities - and in particular Maapar, the French Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Rural Affairs - have taken the opportunity provided by the SIA to launch a huge information and awareness campaign about agricultural trades. The issue is how to get young people interested in working in the country and enable the young to return to farming, while simultaneously fighting the falling morale felt in the industry. Designed to give this sector a new boost, some of its trades and occupations were portrayed on forty or so information boards and were explained by people working in them on their stands.

Alongside traditional occupations such as tree cultivation, cereal growing, greenhouse gardening and oyster farming (France is Europe’s leading oyster producer), new activities are expanding and require, by the same token, new forms of training. So Maapar decided to highlight trades with a promising future and to show what you have to do to embark on a career as, for example, a logistics specialist, an export manager, an industrial automation technician in the timber and furniture trades, or even a cheese maker, who, as the name does not fully make clear, is the technician responsible for the clotting or curdling of the milk.

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Year on year, SIA has grown more elaborate, presenting a colourful range of products, regions and landscapes. The 2004 show - which focused on the Poitou-Charentes region and the Parthenais breed of cattle - also hosted a stand representing the fishing industry and another dedicated to horses, donkeys and ponies. Another new feature was the inclusion of a plant section to promote not just horticulture, but bio-fuels, seeds and plants too. We have come a long way from the first "boeuf gras" (fatted bull) contest, from which this Parisian event developed. First held in 1870 on the initiative of Napoleon III, in Paris, twenty years later this event was opened to regional produce and became a general agricultural competition. But it was not until 1963 that the first Agricultural Show came into being, under the aegis of General de Gaulle.

Today, this agricultural week is famous well beyond the borders of France, and enables a great many people in the sector to establish their reputations through a range of competitions. Among the major events hosted are the 11th World Holstein Dairy Cattle Conference, which saw the world’s top 100 cows of the Prim’Holstein breed on show, and Farmexpo, the livestock trade fair. Very much international in scope, Farmexpo has organised conferences on subjects such as the French supply of breeding stock or the future of dairy farming in Europe.

Each year, the organisers of the show very much rely on visiting foreign trade delegations to give weight to the discussions. UNIDO [2] and Adepta [3] act as intermediaries between exhibitors and French and international visitors. These bodies have also been given the task of inviting some forty foreign delegations, with a particular interest in three areas in which the French excel: genetics, stock breeding and food processing equipment (e.g. for dairy products). Among the countries registered on the priority list this year were the countries of central and eastern Europe and North Africa as well as Brazil, Mexico, China and the United States.