RENETA organized a Discussion Circle on 24th June 2021 on the topic of “Food and Agricultural Policies to support new entrant?”. Over 150 participants gathered from different regions of France, including Martinica! The meeting took place in Mimizan (Nouvelle Aquitaine Region), co-organized by RENETA and the “Landes” District, which has an ambitious policy to support New entrants.
The day started by a roundtable about “How can farm incubators contribute to Food and Agricultural local policies?” The Mayor of Mimizan Frédéric Pomares explained how the municipality tries to have an impact via an agenda 21 focusing on food: local and organic chains to supply the school canteen, providing land for the district farm incubator, protecting water resources, searching land for new comers in agriculture. The municipality also participates to local food projects with other villages and cities, especially to build a collective processing unit for vegetables supplying local canteens. The City of Limoges also presented how they decided to start a farm incubator in 2019 to support new comers in agriculture, especially market gardeners. 500 000€ were invested for 4 incubation spots over 1ha of land.
After the roundtable, participants could visit a farm incubator coordinated by the Landes District and listen the experience of a couple coming from North-Eastern France to Landes district (South-West) because they didn’t manage to start up a farm from their region of origin. The Landes District supports farmers and new entrant by: financial support for collective investments, financial support to new entrants, actions to reduce food wastage, awareness rising with pupils and students about food issues, farm incubators.
After the visit, break-out sessions discussed about the following topics :
- Farm takeover by new entrants
- Funding New entrants and Farm Incubators
- How local authorities can secure land for new entrants ?
- Cooperation between innovation spaces and farm incubators
- How can farm incubators contribute to local food and agricultural policies
- New entrants pathways, and the role of incubation
In the New Aquitaine Region, 8 different farm incubators provide 50 testing grounds. 173 new entrants have been incubated since 2009 and 48 are still incubated.
