Illustration of a tractor working in a field near Rennes.
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C. Allain / 20 Minutes
France concretes the equivalent of a department every seven years.
Very attractive department, Ille-et-Vilaine sees its agricultural land being eaten away every year by land pressure.
On the occasion of the great livestock fair which began on Tuesday in Rennes, the Confédération Paysanne decided to alert on the necessary preservation of land.
“We thought we were losing our farm”.
Sébastien Vétil is a happy farmer and to hear it, his animals are too.
All year round, his Angora goats, calves and cows enjoy the outdoors in Guipry-Messac (Ille-et-Vilaine), where his farm is located.
This is where an amusement park dedicated to Arthurian legends was to set up two years ago.
If the project had seen the light of day, Sébastien would have lost six of his 65 hectares of land.
“It is a permanent struggle to preserve land.
Our case is proof that this can happen anywhere, even when we are far from big cities ”.
Located about forty kilometers south of Rennes, the small town spanning the Vilaine is nevertheless less subject to land pressure than the municipalities surrounding the Breton capital.
Very attractive, the metropolis sees thousands of new inhabitants land each year.
To accommodate them and provide a place in a nursery or at school for their children, new constructions are multiplying, raising the concern of the main land owners.
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“We have the impression that everyone wants their route, their shopping area, their housing estate.
There is no overall land use planning.
Some sectors are emptied to fill others elsewhere when there are abandoned brownfields.
And when the earth is paved, it is lost forever, ”regrets Charlotte Kerglonou-Mellier, spokesperson for the Confédération Paysanne.
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His union wanted to take advantage of the holding, even turned upside down, of Space in Rennes to alert the population to the issue of land pressure.
Rather anchored to the left, the Confédération Paysanne often sits alongside the FNSEA, the majority union very present at the great breeding fair.
But on the issue of land, their opinions converge.
“I am alerted every week on this issue,” admits Loïc Guines, president of the regional chamber of agriculture.
“When I see the number of hectares that have been taken from us for the LGV… They will not be returned to us,” continues the cow breeder, recently converted to organic.
"It is essential not to keep the peasants away from the cities"
In France, urbanization eats up the equivalent of a department every seven years.
Ille-et-Vilaine is no exception to the trend and sees its farmland being eaten away from everywhere.
But more and more voices are being raised to defend them.
In Beaucé, the building permit granted to the Grand Frais store is contested by the mayor of the neighboring town of Fougères.
The latter refuses to see a new commercial offer compete with downtown businesses.
“These zones devitalize the towns, they spread out, grow larger.
It is essential not to remove the peasants from the cities.
I think that the less we know each other, the less we understand each other, ”insists the spokesperson for the Confédération Paysanne.
At the time of the short circuit and “local consumption”, the presence of farms on the outskirts of cities seems essential.
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