I am posting a link to an article that explains how France is investing to radically change the way of farming focusing on young people.
http://www.arc2020.eu/2016/02/a-new-law-a-contested-agroecology-frances-loi-davenir/
Here I put the more interesting part
A vision that starts with showing the way for future generations
With the catchline “produisons autrement” (let us produce in other ways), the Loi d’Avenir looks to agroecology for solutions to current problems. In the autumn of 2014 the French state employed over 200 new researchers and tutors to teach agroecology across the country as a core part of the national agricultural educational programme.
With 40% of France’s agricultural workforce either set to retire within five years or already past retirement age, there is a pressing need to train a new generation of farmers who can take on the nation’s farms and to Conversion to agroecology: France’s hopes for environmental salvation Page 18 of 28 create more jobs in the sector.
Stéphane Le Foll’s headline commitment to applying agroecology on 200,000 holdings by 2025 sounds like a bold piece of policymaking, but it is based on the minister’s reading of existing numbers. He is counting on the next generation of farmers implementing forward-looking strategies and stresses that: “…the crisis that we are going through requires us to put more effort [into agricultural education] to meet a major challenge and create jobs for young people in our country.”
The Loi d’Avenir includes promoting crop diversity and biodiversity as guiding principles. Being careful not to define agroecology too closely, it is being promoted through education and research. In addition, it encourages economic and environmental stakeholders to join forces and manage resources at a landscape level in cross-sector groups, called Groupements d’Intéret Economiques et Environmentaux (GIEE).
The law also makes a fundamental change in land policy, protecting farmland from competing land uses and to making it easier for young farmers to get started in agriculture. Both these aims are achieved by reorganising the regional farmland management bodies (known as SAFERs) which can now intervene in land sales to compulsorily purchase farmland that might otherwise be built over.
