WHAT CONNECTS US We’re seeing vertical concentration strategies that involve integrating upstream and downstream stakeholders to gain more leverage in the supply chains and markets. At the other end of the scale, businesses are striving for diversi昀椀cation – or even multi-specialisation – 4 September 2023, VIVESCIA Village in Châlons-en-Champagne by combining agriculture with non-agricultural activities like power generation, producing biomass, or providing services and strategic and the general outlook with the two co-holders consultancy. As a direct consequence of this, we’re seeing a huge variety of different of the Chair, sociologist François Purseigle and agro-economist Geneviève N’Guyen, along with organisational models, spanning large-scale all the other stakeholders working in the sector reliance on salaried workers; subcontracting to compensate for the erosion of the traditional or representing the public authorities. During model of sharing work among family members; the two round tables VIVESCIA organised at the pooling resources and skills; or outsourcing so Châlons Agricultural Trade Fair in September 2023, participants produced a wealth of ideas and built a you can refocus on your core business and/or on clearer picture of the role each individual can play higher value-added activities. in shaping and driving forward next-generation farming. Is a farm really a business like any other? In the face of myriad new realities – including The very word ‘agricultural’ a sharp decline in farm workers, the ageing is no longer adequate to demographic of farm managers (one in three is old enough to retire, but has no successor), strong price describe what the business pressure in the agricultural and agri-food markets, does –sometimes it’s altered market and industry conditions, climate essentially a commercial or change, and the transition to more sustainable farming – farms are driven to radical and rapid industrial operation. change, mirroring the business development patterns seen across other industries. FRANÇOIS PURSEIGLE The new Farm to Fork These strategies are chie昀氀y designed with value creation in mind, aiming to produce a secure agricultural policy calls income stream, and they often call for signi昀椀cant for farmers to have a much investments. Allowing non-farming partners, as well as legal entities, to acquire equity in a greater range of skills farm has led to the emergence of new, complex and an ability to optimise legal structures and new forms of governance. 10% of farmers are now at the helm of several their practices and their companies, each in a different sector and all under use of increasingly scarce the umbrella of one holding company. resources…” GENEVIÈVE N’GUYEN 21