Où va l'horticulture française ?

Horticulture, in the large meaning (fruit-growing, vegetables, nurseries, flowers and ornemental plants) represents 15% of the farm production value and 25 % of the employment in agriculture. Heterogeneity of structures and performances answers to the diversity of products, markets and technics. Since 1950, this industry, as a whole, registered a large increasing related to technical progress and consumption growth. In the meantime, large changes occured in the nature, the location and the forms of the production. Since about 1 965, as a result of the progressive enlargement of the market to the european space,, a strong international competition occured. This evolution seems to be going in the frame of a progressive european economic integration. This paper gives probably a too simple view of the recent evolution but brings us some lights concerning the out look of horticulture in France.