IN 1916 Léon Gellynck arrived in France from Belgium to take part in the Battle of the Somme. He survived and stayed on, marrying a local girl and starting a small dairy farm.

It is still there — a rectangular red-brick building on the edge of Fignières village — and it is run by Léon’s grandson, Patrick. Its future is uncertain.

Like most French farmers, M Gellynck, 47, depends on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for a living. He says that his annual revenue — after deducting his outgoings — comes to about £20,000. Without subsidies, it would be nothing.

“We couldn’t survive in a completely free market,” he said, sitting with his wife, Elisabeth, also 47, in their small dining room. “We’d just go out of business — and so would every other farmer in France.”

A broad-shouldered man with a dark moustache and a welcoming smile, M Gellynck knows that any gains made by Tony Blair are likely to mean a loss of income on his 80-hectare farm. “We are right behind Chirac on this one,” he said.

On the other side of the Rue de l’Église in Fignières, the Gellyncks’ 30 black and white cows graze in a field dotted with cider apple trees. The herd produces 200,000 litres of milk a year — a quota fixed under an EU system to keep up prices. It is bought by the yoghurt maker Yoplait.

M Gellynck says that it costs him €0.22 (15p) a litre to produce the milk, and the price he now gets is scarcely more than that after a 20 per cent fall in the past year. He makes a profit from his cows only because Europe has guaranteed him a compensatory grant if the market price is below €0.30 a litre — and this until 2009. “What’s going to happen after 2009? I just don’t know,” he said.

Following a 30 per cent fall in price, he earns €20,000 a year for his 30 hectares of wheat — about what it costs him to produce it. That is after €12,000 of subsidies.

His sugar beet fields represent a quarter of his revenue, because the price is supported by a quota system, but this system will be replaced in 2007 after the World Trade Organisation upheld a complaint from Third World producers. “It’s obvious we’re going to lose out again,” M Gellynck said.

The CAP, despite the subsidies, leaves him perplexed. He produces a pile of documents demanded by EU officials (five years of veterinary prescriptions, hygiene checks and bills). “We spend one day a week filling in forms,” he said. “We have to save money all the time just to keep our heads above water these days.”

“We put in 100 hours a week,” Mme Gellynck said.

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