What drives competition on the farmland market? A case study in Brittany (France)

We investigate factors which may drive the number of agents who compete for a specific piece of agricultural land by fitting count data models on data originating from a local committee, the CDOA, which is responsible for agricultural guidance of the prefect in delivering the necessary ‘authorizations to farm’. We notably find that the size of the offered land positively contributes to the competitor number, and that new entrants face less competition. The seemingly counterintuitive result that a locally denser farmer population yields fewer competitors is given a line of potential explanation pertaining to the likely role of farmer unions.