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French bovine production employs the equivalent of 300,000 full-time workers

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Agreste cahiers n° 2 - juin 2000
Cattle holdings in France rear almost 20 million head of bovines.
Cattle holdings in France rear almost 20 million head of bovines. In all, this production requires an annual work-load that is equivalent to that of 300,000 full-time people. Most of this work is done by family members, employees accounting for barely 4 % of the work. Dairying is quite demanding in terms of labour and leaves little room for other productions. Whatever its size, a dairy herd absorbs three-quarters of the agricultural work on a holding. On the other hand, rearing beef cattle - especially in the case of smaller herds - is often associated with mixed farming or, in the north of France, to intensive farming (flax, potatoes, beets...). Work productivity increases with the size of the herd. The practice of fettered stalling is declining, replaced by free stalling, particularly in dairying. Within the framework of the scheme for mastering farm-generated pollutions (PMPOA), the obligation to bring buildings up to norms weighs more heavily on intensive dairy farms, notably in the West, than on beef-cattle breeders. One-third of the breeders concerned had begun this upgrading at the time of the survey in December 1998.
 
by Florent Guyennet et Jean-Louis Fraysse, Louis Melet

Ministère de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation