Come Back Down to Earth

French NGO Terre de Liens is celebrating 20 years of agricultural preservation with an awareness campaign whose release coincides with a national discussion over a new law which will have a major impact on the country’s future of farming and set a precedent for other European countries.

The project, known as PLOAA (Pacte et une loi d’orientation et d’avenir Agricole), is set to establish an agreement and law on how to meet the challenges of food sovereignty and generational renewal in agriculture and how to help the sector adapt to agro-ecological and climate change. The discussion also focuses on making agriculture more appealing as a career path, training and providing assistance for beginning farmers, and facilitating the succession of farmland to combat industrialization. This month, a working group organized by the government is set to present its much-anticipated findings on ways to do so.

Released December 1, the organization’s “Come Back Down to Earth” campaign, created with agency STRIKE, features a 90” animated film that invites audiences to return to Earth and encourages a renewed appreciation for farmers and the resources they provide.

In France, nearly 200 farms disappear every week and 50,000 hectares of farmland are paved over every year. Worse still, 1 in 3 farmers will retire in the next 10 years, with no one to replace them.

The stakes for the new law are high and critics say the current text falls short of meeting the urgent needs of the agriculture sector, not doing enough to help a new generation of farmers by making agricultural land more accessible for sustainable projects, or to limit the scale and impact of climate change, to stop the decline in biodiversity, or to relocalize food.

For 20 years, the foundation Terre de Liens has been working to end land speculation and promoting generational renewal. In just two decades the association has rescued more than 300 farms and helped 700 farmers set up, and today is supported by thousands of donors.