Crossed views on land policies in Uruguay and France: What challenges do the current agrarian dynamics pose?

In Uruguay, as in France, access to land has become a problem, and with it, the difficulty of regulating the concentration process. In Uruguay, the policies implemented through the National Institute of Colonisation receive few resources for land incorporation and the demand from producers with access difficulties is significant. In France, the common agricultural policy has stimulated land concentration, calling into question the actions of the Sociétés d'Aménagement du Territoire et d'Installation Rural, making it difficult for new producers to establish on the land. This study compares public policies and land regulation instruments in Uruguay and France, while it seeks to understand the evolution of these instruments and the results of their application, through a review of documentary sources (academic and technical) and interviews with different categories of actors. The first reflections show that both countries share a state-developed system of land-access regulation. Despite their different trajectories and characteristics, both systems aim at the promotion and maintenance of family production, as their priority. However, both structures have been confronted with the advance of agribusiness and the financialization of agriculture, which have resulted in the increasing concentration of agricultural land. The limitations of the instruments do not manage to overcome the difficulties identified to improve the access conditions for less well-endowed producers or sectors.