Irish farmers that attended the recent Sommet de l’Élevage agricultural show in Clermont Ferrand, France, were surprised to hear about the value of land in the surrounding region.
The land in the region is of good quality, with crops of maize, sunflowers, lucerne and grass growing in abundance.
As part of the agricultural show, international visitors had the opportunity to visit a range of farms operating different systems to offer visitors from other countries an insight into agriculture in the Massif Central region.
One of the questions commonly asked by Irish delegates on these farm tours was about the cost of leasing and purchasing land.
In was not uncommon to hear of land rental costs ranging from €100-150/ha and land purchase costs ranging from €2,000-3,000/ha, a fraction of the cost of purchasing or leasing land in Ireland.
Land prices are quoted on a per hectare (ha) basis in France, rather than the acre (ac) unit in Ireland. 1 ha = 2.47ac.
Many of the farms visited on the tours had what would be considered as mid-sized herds in Ireland ranging from 60-80 cows and interestingly, most were of these farmers were not interested in expansion.
Pedigree breeding cattle is generally standard practice on cattle farms in the region with cases of crossbreeding of cattle breeds more uncommon.
There is a great passion for cattle breed preservation and development amongst the farmers that were visited on the tours.
Sommet
While the agricultural show itself had an impressive display of cattle and the Salers breed hosted their national show at the event, the number of sheep at the annual show was greatly reduced from 400 in other years to 40 this year due to livestock disease concerns in some regions of France.
As well the range of beef breeds at the event, there was also an impressive showing of dairy breeds with French breeds including Montbéliarde, Normande and dairy Simmentals.
The event runs from Tuesday, October 1 until today, Friday, October 4 and sees huge numbers of French farmers, as well as farmers and agri-industry personnel from across Europe and further afield travel to the show.