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In the Departement of the Loire, 70 % of the bovine live-stock — overwhelmingly dairy-breeds — are insiminated artificially. In the North of the Departement, artificial insimination is seldom resorted to in breeding Charolais beef-cattle. Until 1984, industrial crossbreeding with Charolais cattle semens-representing over half the total insiminations — had lost to rising insiminations of pure dairy-breeds. The first effects of the policy of dairy production control can be found in the 1984 results showing a fall in insiminations on dairy-breeds and a rise in industrial cross-breeding. Increasing use of new techniques such as embryo transplant, will go a long way to preserving the genetic quality of livestock.

Agriculture in the outskirts of Lyon is going through many troubles at the moment, such as gradual erosion by the unceasingly spreading town, the too high purchase price of lands and their unreliable renting. In the context of the « Region Urbaine de Lyon » (R.U.L.) a saving programme was launched in 1979. It concerned nine « priority areas » and hinged mainly on land development S.A.F.E.R. made land reforms and the creation of irrigation networks. Whether that policy under way will succeed or not depends on the local authorities' standpoint and the setting-up of small groups of farmers undertoking the plan.

First promoted as a feature of natural interest, the gorges of the Ardèche have since attracted an increasing number of visitors, linked to the growing appeal of the countryside for leisure and to the present popularity of river sports. Threatened by the success of this tourist activity the gorges were classified in 1980 as a Nature Reserve. However, this designation has only served to increase the number of visitors. Pollution is now a problem which seems unlikely to be salved simply by educating the public or by improved management. While nature-lovers protest at this situation, the people of the Ardèche are in favour of developing tourism in the gorges as a means of expanding the local economy. Only a geographical approach to this paradoxical situation would seem to offer the means to resolve the conflict between safeguarding the environment and satisfying society's leisure needs.

ABSTRACT Because of the membership of Spain and Portugal to the common market on January 1st 1986, the mediterranean integrated programmes (MIP) have been conceived on the european economic community initiative, to prepare Greece and the italian and french southern regions to face the new iberian competition. Each MIP consists of a coherent whole of measures, complementary between them, relating to the principal sectors of the regional economy and binding all the interested parties : EEC, State, Region, local authorities. In the Ardèche and Drôme departments and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, we have analysed the impact of the widening, and the main actions planned in the mediterranean agricultural paths the most sensitive to the iberian competition : fruit and vegetables, wine growing, ovine breeding, horticulture.

For the modernization of agriculture in France, the part of the J.A.C. Movement (Jeunesse Agricole Catholique, or Catholic Rural Youth) has been recognized as a decisive one. Its roots refer to the opposition between Republican France and Conservative France, which shared the peasant country through the Third Republic Regime. We have an idea of it through the inquiries done between 1950 and 1960 in the field of religious sociology. Since the beginning of the sixties, which shows « the end of the peasants » and the end of the J.A.C, the seniors of the movement became the managerial staff of professional organizations and concerted planning in the rural circles. The objective of the study group on the present heritage of the J.A.C. Movement in the Rhône-Alpes Region is to enlighten the mecanisms of micro-regional development, from studies conducted in rural catholic concentrations in the South-East of France.