The happy poor turn into the unhappy poor: In the second of a three-part series on the farmers of France, Julian Nundy visits two families to find out how life on the farm is being changed by EC policies

The modern landscape of the Landes is just what Napoleon III had in mind. It was thanks to his vision that pine forests were planted on the sandy marshes of the Atlantic hinterland of the south-western French coast. The roots and resinous needles would eventually bind the soil together, he believed, and make it fertile.

In 1969, the Jacquet family sold their 70-hectare (173-acre) farm in the Beauce region south-east of Paris to move to the Landes to clear 500 hectares of forest near the village of Solferino where they now grow maize. The flat land is ideal for the irrigation sprinklers which rotate over 100-hectare patches in the summer months.

'American farmers sometimes come here to see how we work as this is very similar to many American farms,' said Nicolas Jacquet, 31, a member of Rural Co-ordination, the militant farmers' movement founded a year ago. 'But our overheads are much greater than in America. A farm-worker earns 5,000 or 6,000 francs ( pounds 600 to pounds 715) a month, about the same as in the US, but the social charges push the cost up to 10,000 for us. A tractor (his farm has 12) costs between Fr350,000 and Fr400,000.'

Under last May's reform of the EC's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the Jacquets have to stop cultivating 15 per cent of their land, an effort to reduce the surplus production of cereals. 'That's 79 hectares or 200 acres,' Mr Jacquet says. If the Gatt compromise is applied in its current form, he expects more land to be frozen.

Although the terms of the CAP reform have been known for more than six months, Mr Jacquet says the government has not yet made it clear whether farmers will have to rotate fallow land or whether it can be fixed. In his case, land which is difficult to irrigate would be the first choice. This would mean laying off some of the farm's seven workers. Between four and five are needed in summer to irrigate parts of the farm the sprinklers cannot reach. Mr Jacquet says some of his neighbours have already started sacking staff.

'If we can just stick to the land covered by the sprinklers, it will mean half an hour's work morning and evening,' Mr Jacquet adds. 'Then I can go to the beach.' On a turnover of Fr6m, Mr Jacquet says that he expects a loss of Fr1m in the next financial year. 'In a few years, we will have to stop if this goes on,' he says. 'But there are too many unknowns, too many variables for a proper evaluation.'

One hundred miles away to the east, in the rolling hills of the Gers department, there are few such problems on the 31.5 hectares belonging to Jean Baptiste. Nearing retirement age - he plans to spend his annuity on central heating - he hopes to plant trees on the 4.7 hectares where he will no longer grow cereals.

The surface of the Baptiste farm near the village of Montaut- les-Creneaux is about half the minimum which agricultural economists consider viable to support a family in France. In the wine-producing areas, the picture is far different; just a few hectares can make a family rich.

With no bank loans, Mr Baptiste is largely self-sufficient. 'We have always been poor, but before we were happy,' he says. 'Now we are unhappy since we think we are finished. We used to be proud because we were feeding people but that was a long time ago.'

Mr Baptiste's farm has evolved in a way that is typical for many French farms where traditional activities were abandoned in favour of cereals. 'We had livestock, one hectare of vines and the rest was cereals until 1980,' he says. 'My father looked after the animals into his eighties, then we sold them. Now we have only cereals and oilseeds.'

Discussing the dilemma that French farmers feel they now face, Mr Baptiste says: 'We were not warned in time. No economist can tell us what we should do.' Mr Jacquet says he is relying on the French government breaking its word on CAP reform and working towards a system in which the prices paid to the producer will reflect the actual costs of growing.

If, as expected, 500,000 to 600,000 farmers have to leave the land in the next few years, they will swell the numbers of France's unemployed, which topped the 3 million mark last month. Jacques Laigneau, the president of Rural Co-ordination, says the farmers will be driven into the already tense suburbs of the big cities.

'Now, if you leave your wallet behind, we'll drive miles to find you and give it back,' he says. 'When I'm living in a suburb, I'll do all I can to steal it from you.'