French Farms Get A Makeover

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:

Nearly every industry in France is laying off workers, except farming, yet French farmers say they can't find enough people to work the fields. So the government is trying to attract new recruits by launching a campaign to update farming's image. Eleanor Beardsley has this report.

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ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: As a purple-wooled punk sheep, a shopaholic pig and a hip-hop cow in sneakers and sunglasses flash across the screen…

Unidentified Woman #1: (French spoken)

BEARDSLEY: …a breathy voice tells viewers that farming offers fashionable careers. Despite the French claim of a deep emotional attachment to farming in the countryside, thousands of young people have left rural villages and farms in the last decades. Today, barely 4 percent of the active population works the land. Desperate to attract new recruits, French farmers launched their new ad campaign last week at the annual farm show in Paris.

Unidentified Man: (French spoken)

BEARDSLEY: Picture a humongous state fair that brings together thousands of farmers and their beasts from across the country. The show is a smorgasbord of scenes, sounds and smells from the heart of rural France. It's also the perfect place to introduce the farming life to half a million city slickers.

Unidentified Woman #2: (French spoken)

BEARDSLEY: At a recruiting stand for the new campaign, a giant banner reads: Tomorrow, I'll be a farmer. An announcer gives tiny children a quiz about farm life while young people register to win a giant green tractor. Pascal Farze(ph) is president of the National Farmers Union, which sponsored the campaign.

Mr. PASCAL FARZE (President, National Farmers Union): (Through translator) We wanted to buff up the image of farming, make it young, dynamic, even a little fun. We need to attract young blood. So this is a playful way to get young people to at least come take a closer look at the world of agriculture.

BEARDSLEY: Despite soaring unemployment in France, 21 percent of farmers say they have difficulty finding enough staff. That number rises to 37 percent if you're talking about skilled help. In rural France, there are tens of thousands of permanent and seasonal job openings.

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BEARDSLEY: Milk producer Jean Louis Escure(ph) is bringing his calves over to their mother's paddocks to suckle during feeding time. At 55, Escure says he's made a good living, but has no one to take over his farm when he retires.

Mr. JEAN LOUIS ESCURE (Farmer): (Through translator) There aren't a lot of young people who want to do this tough job. You've got to work Saturdays and Sundays, and you can just forget about the 35-hour work week. That doesn't exist on a farm.

BEARDSLEY: France is the world's second largest agricultural exporter after the U.S. It's also the biggest beneficiary of the European Union's agricultural aid. But most of that goes to giant agribusiness and cereal farms and not the small farmer.

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Unidentified Group: (Singing in foreign language)

BEARDSLEY: In one corner of the farm show, a band plays Corsican folk songs in front of the Corsican sheep breed exhibit. In a country where each region boasts its own wines, cheeses, cows, sausages and the list goes on, the small farmer is still seen as the guardian of rural and gastronomical heritage.

Twenty-year-old Charlie Pondri(ph) is one farmer's son who does plan to carry on the family business. His father and grandfather breed Charolais beef cattle in Burgundy.

Mr. CHARLIE PONDRI (Farmer): (Through translator) Building a good herd of cattle takes several decades, so it's important that I will be there to continue our farm and the tradition. But you do have to be motivated and very passionate.

BEARDSLEY: Pondri and other farmers here applaud the campaign. Their only concern is that it may attract what they call neo-rurals, those who romanticize farming and may not be quite ready for its reality.

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BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.

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WERTHEIMER: This is NPR News.

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