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Abstract
During the last decades, industrial production means have been subject to important price increases which have not been proportionnally transmitted to the producer prices of farm products. In an economic situation characterized by lower farm incomes and increased unemployment the farmers using these production means rather than man-power are still economically more competitive. In spite of a slowdown since 1975, the rural outmigration continues and there is a preference for increased machine power to compensate the decreased amount of certain industrial inputs such as implements. The overall trend to substitute machines for man-power is slowed down but not reversed. the comparison on a national level of accounts from different categories of farms shows that there is still a strong correlation between the economic size of the farm, the amount of production means per worker and the income of the farm family. For all farm categories there is a fall in the amount of manpower and a rise in the amount of production means at their disposal. Consequently, it is very doubtful whether more man-power using production systems could be developped in the present economic system.