Brussels, 05/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Confederation of Technical Agricultural, Rural and Forestry Companies (CEETTAR) recently published a study carried out in ten Member States aimed at assessing the economic and social weight of technical agricultural, rural and forestry companies (TARFC) that provide services in the agricultural sector. CEETTAR concludes that there is a considerable dearth of information about these new companies and they have not, to date, made the effort to extend knowledge and recognition about their true worth. The Confederation emphasises the importance of their role, stressing that - through their interventions in the field, TARFCs help cut costs for farmers, raise farmers' professional revenues and meet the new technological challenges facing agriculture; - TARFCs' social and economic weight is increasing both nationally and at EU-level; - TARFCs are being used in agriculture, rural development and the environment to provide new ideas and services of an ever greater level of technicality and sophistication. For this reason, their aims can no longer be purely limited to testing out agricultural machinery for machinery manufacturers, argues the study.
Some 94% of the entrepreneurs sounded out in the ten countries (Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom) came out in favour of European social dialogue recognising them as social partners. The main results of the poll are as follows:
Characteristics: In all 10 countries, the most intense period of business startup began in the 1970s (for almost 2/3 of the sample). In the Netherlands and Denmark, between 30 and 37.5% of companies were set up before 1950, compared with only 5% in Germany). In Germany and Ireland, 20% of companies were created in the 1950s. Portugal recorded the highest rate of company creation, 66.7%, during the 1980s. More than 60% of such companies in the UK and 76% in Italy are craft-based compared with only 13% in the Netherlands and 18% in France. France and Portugal are the countries with the greatest proportion of large-scale companies (67% and 59%). Medium-sized companies predominate in Belgium (58%), the Netherlands (50%) and Germany (44%). Most companies work in traditional agricultural practices, including manuring and spraying with plant health products. The next category includes activities such as maintaining agricultural equipment, hiring such equipment, followed by harvesting and re-planting forests. In Germany, traditional agricultural activities account for over 20% of the work carried out by TARFCs, compared with only 3 to 4% in Portugal or 6 to 7% in the UK. Some 91.7% of the entrepreneurs surveyed said their clients were farmers. Landowners and local authorities were also important clients for 34% of the companies polled.
Staff: Company managers most frequently boasted of specialising in sustainable development (42%) or the environment (42%). Almost 40% of the companies said they often or very often had problems recruiting staff.
Economic outline: The cumulative turnover is estimated at EUR 175 million in 1999 for all the 132 companies surveyed. The highest turnover in Germany is made by large-scale companies (more than 10 members of staff), at almost EUR 30 million. Medium-sized companies' turnover in the Netherlands is EUR 6.4 million, compared with EUR 1.5 million for similar sized companies in Belgium.
(For more information, contact: Eddy Klöcker at the European Confederation of Technical Agricultural, Rural and Forestry Work (CEETTAR), 7 rue d'Alost, 1000 Brussels: Tel: +32 2 213 38 74; e-mail cettar.europe@skynet.be)