A rant about farming here

The cows have been in the woods below Quélébu for the last week. ‘Farming’ up here basically involves enclosing a few tens of hectares or so of other peoples land (mostly absent landlords) with an electric fence and then letting a herd of hundred cows loose in it for two - three weeks a year. The land is otherwise unfenced and mostly woodland, bracken and brambles (once pasture, but neglected and unmaintained for 50 years). The cows trample the vegetation and forage for grass, they destroy the old stone terraces, communal paths and walls – but do nothing to halt the advance of trees, bracken and brambles.

Most landowners here still seem to hold onto the principle of never selling land. I guess this principle is born out of a time when they maintained, used and lived off it, when it was productive agricultural land that their fathers and forefathers had worked hard to create and improve, their only asset. This no longer applies - the land has little agricultural value anymore, few if any of the current landowners are involved in farming or maintain the land and many don’t even live in the Ariege any more (though most retain a second home here to use in the August summer holiday).

One can’t blame the few farmers left here for the way they use the land. Unable to buy it, why should they invest time and money to improve it to pasture once again? There are plenty of people here willing, desperate even, to start farming properly. Every week the local paper is full of adds from local ‘young farmers’ trying to find a few acres of land to buy to ‘start-up’ in business. A search also hampered by France's ludicrous inheritance laws which have left the land split into millions of tiny 'parcelles' - mostly fractions of a acre in size - all under different ownership. Accumulating a couple of acres of 'parcelles' in reasonable proximity to each other is nigh on impossible.

I guess farming will only recommence here when the ‘old guard’ pass on and their children who return to the Ariege for holidays and leisure, will see the land for what it has become – valueless – and take a less compassionate view with regard to selling it to the people who are willing to invest in it and use it - to the good of the local economy and countryside.