Agricultural grouping of joint exploitation

Commonly called GAEC , the Agricultural Groupement of joint Exploitation is, in France, a very particular social form, formed by meeting of several Exploitation S:

“The agricultural groupings of joint exploitation are civil society of people. They are formed between major natural persons. ” (L323-1 Article of the rural Code)

It is a company, provided with the legal entity, but in which the members preserve their statute of farmer in proper name. It is necessary for them for that to take part in the exploitation and that must constitute their “principal activity” (with the tax direction). The participation in the exploitation can be very specialized, and even “tertiary” (to make accountancy, to manage the relationships to the administration, etc), it can be part-time. It is not possible to be an at the same time farmer in a GAEC and with personal capacity (and thus, it is not possible to be Agriculteur in several GAEC at the same time).

Moreover, the members receive a remuneration for two reasons distinct: as a worker, and as a contributor of capital and means of work. The statutes of the GAEC fix the distribution between the members of the operating profits. A GAEC is a company where one thus counts the number of partnership shares, but also quantity of work brought, and the number of joined together exploitations. Thus, two GAEC identical in all connections (activity, many members, structure of the capital and sharing out work between the members, etc) can nevertheless be regarded as different according to the number of exploitations joined together in the beginning.

The statute grants some (small) advantages, and is thus subjected to approval on behalf of the State. In practice, approval is never refused.

In the spirit of the founders, it was about a tool for co-operation between several farmers, a kind of minis Coopérative (although a GAEC is not a co-operative). Actually, the GAEC founded in this spirit are very rare. The statute especially filled another need: to organize successions carefully and to circumvent the Réglementation S which limit the enlarging of the farms (the surface of reference are divided by the number of members of the GAEC). A typical example is the resumption of another firm by a son, who puts himself in GAEC with his father, which is withdrawn some years later. The GAEC must dissolve, but the son preserves the whole exploitation.

A GAEC also makes it possible to make wives of Agriculteur S of the women farmer with whole share.

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