Role of the horse industry in the regional development in France

In Europe, the horse industry is seldom included in regional development policies. Stakeholders explain this dismiss by the lack of visibility about this sector. In fact, the main difficulties to gather available data can be related to the diversity of horse uses (races, sport and leisure, meat…) and to the contribution of this industry to various sectors such as agriculture, sports and tourism. The aim of this paper is (1) to present data available in national bases in France, and (2) how these data precise the place of the horse industry in the different French regions. The national number of horses is estimated at 1 million animals with significant regional differences. For example, Basse-Normandie is the first French region with a total of 77,000 horses and gathered near 50% of the national livestock for races but only 6% of sport and leisure horses, while Auvergne is the first area for meat production thanks to 5,000 draught mares. The horse industry is well involved in the agricultural sector of these regions, as they both gathered 20% of farms with horses and 20% of horses registered by the agricultural census. Studies in French regions as Languedoc-Roussillon show that the horse industry is also developed in suburban districts where private owners and equestrian structures use small plots left available by the increase of urbanization. These regularly updated data are used in various French contexts as public investments and national CAP implementation. While national and regional policies depend more and more on European regulations, the European horse industry remains invisible despite its obvious role in rural development, probably because of a lack of a Community procedure for the organization of data.