| Titre | L'évolution de l'agriculture française depuis 1940 | |
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| Auteur | Lucien Gachon | |
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Revue | Revue économique |
| Numéro | 1955, no 1 | |
| Page | 35-55 | |
| Résumé anglais |
Until 1914 France remained essentially an agricultural and rural nation But froni 1914 to 1918 more than one million young French peasants died in iwar From 1919 to 1938 despite rural electrification the rush towards the towns especially Paris continued The natality went on declining espe cially in the Southern part of the country From 1940 to 1945 in occupied France peasants suffered less than townspeople Feeding sufficiently them selves and supplying cities with food despite German confiscations their fate seemed enviable in the common unhappiness But in 1945 and 1946 the social laws started discriminating bet ween salaried and unsalaried wor kers the former mainly townspeople and the latter mainly peasants Never theless until 1949 the economical and psychological consequences of this regrettable discrimination did not appear seriously as the demand for agri cultural products remained at high level In the spring of 1949 with sufficient basic production of essential foods the balance started to drop on the side of townspeople There after all the consequences of the nume rical sociological psychological economical and political superiority of town- life especially of Paris appeared clearly To-day in too many parts of the French countryside there are not enough young peasants to keep the soil in good conditions to introduce the necessary mécanisation and espe cially to form society by creating the cooperative syndical and political organisations indispensable on local level as well as on the national level in the modern world However from the Gharentes to the Alpes of Savoy and Dauphine pas sing through Vendee Britanny Normandy Picardy Flandres Ardennes Alsace and Northern Jura the productivity of the earth has increased in such proportions that there is abundance of meat milk and milk products And that despite the under-production of other regions like the Massif Central which tend to become deserts of brush rather than forests What is the cause of present rural difficulties There are causes which appear clearly Excessive rural depopulation super-production of wine and alcohols disparity of wealth and equipment but further one must remark that France is an under-populated country Unlike its neighbours which benefit from their large demographical increase Metropolitan France suffers from lack of young and enterprising people to renovate its country side anf fight against that national evil of complete or partial unculti vated land Source : Éditeur (via Persée) |
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| Article en ligne | http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/reco_0035-2764_1955_num_6_1_407093 |
