agreste

Agreste cahiers n° 40 - juin 1999

Soft wheat, potatoes and pork illustrate three realities of French agriculture : a crop production, wheat, heavily subsidised by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), another subject to the law of supply and demand, and an animal production also outside of the CAP.

Soft wheat, potatoes and pork illustrate three realities of French agriculture : a crop production, wheat, heavily subsidised by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), another subject to the law of supply and demand, and an animal production also outside of the CAP. In these three cases, production costs have decreased between 1990 and 1997. For wheat and pork, the decrease in cost stems from a better control of expenses ; for potatoes, it is due primarily to the increase in yields. If the decrease in costs is common to all three productions, incomes on the other hand have varied : a continued and noticeable increase for soft wheat, with wide fluctuations according to the year for pork and potatoes. The prices for the latter products are fixed by the market and vary strongly according to the year. Conversely, the price of soft wheat is regulated by mechanisms coming under the CAP.