Une invention de l'Europe : les plans de développement. Origine, bilan

In 1968, MANSHOLT offered a bargain to the European farmers : some of them could ha ve the same income and leisure as the other workers, but they should work in farm enterprises of industrial size. Owing to a strengthened land planning, the development plans would permit for each farm the transition from the current situation to the planned one. For the members states, agriculture can incur slow developments which only need to be supported and encouraged ; the development plans which were defined by the Ministers' Council will not be therefore very selective. Ten years about after the MANSHOLT plan, there is still no such plan in Italy and Luxembourg. In the other countries, medium-sized farms mainly and stock farms more particularly have used them, to intensify their production by investing rather than to expand. The United Kingdom alone uses them for large farms.