In the two decades following the war dramatic changes were effected in the number, structure and role of agricultural organisations in France. The cooperative sector was greatly enlarged to embrace both the production and marketing of agricultural produce. The agricultural syndicate remained central to French agriculture; it was through the syndicate that economic and social strategies for farming were elaborated and debated and the movement continued to be a productive source of organisational innovation. The degree of state intervention, often through the chambers of agriculture, also increased from the 1950s.

A new framework for agricultural organizations

In June 1944 the government in exile in Algiers dissolved the Corporation paysanne and its constituent bodies, a decision confirmed in October 1944, and followed by the arrest of some of its more prominent members – Caziot, de Guébriant, Le Roy Ladurie (despite his resignation from the corporation some two years previously). In its place a Confédération générate de I'agriculture (CGA) was established, formed largely around an embryonic organisation created in the Resistance years, and led by Tanguy-Prigent, a young Breton socialist, who had been active in the inter-war years in creating a syndical movement to rival the powerful Office central in Brittany.

The task of the new organisation was difficult. The elimination of all remnants of the corporation was in many respects a political rather than an agricultural decision, for much of its work had been useful and few of its leaders, whether regional or national, could be considered collaborators.