Being a smallholder

In France starting a business or simply being self employed is notoriously difficult. Boy how the french love bureaucracy. The simplist form of agriculteur who can buy and sell animals and produce is a 'cotisan solidaire' (or cotisan de solidarite). You pay a fixed tax contribution each year, can usually get all your VAT on purchases refunded but get no pension or healthcare entitlement unless you pay extra. But...you must have no less than 2 hectares of agricultural land (woods, scrub, etc don't count) and no more than 9 hectares. Sounds perfect if I want to legally sell pigs or lambs, saucisson, jambon, some vegetables, etc at St Girons market. But I've been adding up my agricultural land and even with the extension to field 1, I only have 1 hectare. I have another parcelle about a kilometer away which I reckon I could clear to bring the total to 1.3 hectares but all the other land is definitely forest - so I'm still 0.7 hectares short...damn and blast. A visit to the Hotel des Impots is in order to see the cadastral maps and look for some extra land, if anyone will sell it!