Introduction

Summary

The study of agricultural associations in France is based on both the richness and diversity of their history, and their continued place in contemporary society. The power of the farm lobby in France is testimony to the historical importance of agricultural syndicates, cooperatives and mutual movements; equally, the loud, lively and usually good-natured demonstrations that periodically enliven the streets of Paris or Brussels show that, despite the fall in the size of the agricultural population, its political and economic power remains considerable.

Few, if any, farmers now remain untouched by an increasingly complex network of associations which shape the character and direction of agricultural change. The syndicate, cooperative, Chamber of agriculture and Crédit agricole are integral parts of the administrative, economic and political structures of contemporary rural France. Their views are courted by government, their politices the subject of fierce internal and external debate, and their role as representatives of the economic and social interests of farmers has always been a subject of dispute and controversy amongst farmers themselves. It is the prime task of this book to consider the origins and development of these associations since the end of the First World War. When and where did the agricultural syndicate first develop? What political and economic forces shaped its evolution and underpinned its policies? And how have such policies – towards rural depopulation or the small family farmer or the organisation of the agricultural market – changed over time? How has the cooperative movement developed? What links tied that movement to the syndicates on one hand or the food-processing firms on the other?