Rural French businesses have suffered a drain of people in recent years as youngster shun running their traditional family farms and enterprises, instead turning to more profitable roles in towns and cities.
As a result, there is fast becoming a vacuum and skills gap and the French rural industry seem to be really worried that not enough young people are prepared to take over: it's partly money; partly lifestyle.
Take a look at the magazine in the video sent out by our department (not commune as I describe it in the video) 47 Lot et Garonne - enticing young people into land-based businesses.
It's absolutely what the UK government should be doing too.
What do you reckon?
This is so under-estimated in the UK. Much talk about engineering workplace composition -getting youngsters into medicine, engineering, science, or getting women into male-dominated roles. They are all laudable, but unless we get young people into land-based businesses, the rural-urban link will be broken forever - what defines a culture better than the history of its landscape? The draft Scottish Land Use Strategy, the first of its kind in Europe, calls for successful land based businesses, but fails to give a mechanism as described above. Without people successfully employed in land-based businesses, any attempt to keep Greenfield sites, or maintain forests is doomed to fail. Our countryside needs people!
Posted by: Alba Trees | Mar 29, 2011 at 02:54 PM
Thanks for your comment John.
"Our countryside needs people"
Isn't it strange that the world is facing its greatest food and hunger challenge ever yet there appears to be more of a hunger to build luxury cars than to reap from the land.
Posted by: Philip Voice | Mar 30, 2011 at 07:46 AM