Farm income on grazing livestock farms in France: trends and dispersion according to forage systems

This article reports on the evolution and dispersion of income for French herbivore breeders, distinguishing across farms’ production specialization (dairy cattle, beef cattle, mixed cattle, sheep/goat, and mixed farming/poly-breeding) and forage systems (using the weight of forage maize and permanent grassland in the main forage area as segmentation criteria). This analysis is based on processing applied to data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) over a long period (i.e. from 2010 to 2023) and a shorter period (from 2020 to 2023), expressing all values quoted in constant 2023 euros. The income indicator used here is the family farm income per non-salaried agricultural work unit. Several lessons can be drawn from this work: i) on average over the period 2010 to 2023, French farms specialized in herbivore production generated an annual income (28,300 euros) significantly lower than by other farms (42,300 euros); ii) there is a high degree of income dispersion, both between and within forage systems; iii) labor productivity, productive efficiency, and the burden of debt servicing are decisive indicators of income levels; iv) subsidies play a major role in the income of many livestock farms.