If you are hunting for a goat farm for sale in Centre-Val de Loire, you are looking at one of France's foremost dairy goat areas, where goat milk has long fed protected-designation cheeses, a network of dairies and a great many farmhouse cheese rooms. The files gathered here come from farmers preparing to hand over, from rural estate agencies and from notaries; each one states the capacity of the goat house, the milking equipment, the size of the herd, the forage land that goes with it and where the milk is sold. Every one of them also appears among the goat farms for sale across the country.
The page adds what a listing leaves out: what grassland and arable land are worth in the region, which departments bring the most holdings onto the market, how to read the condition of a livestock building, and the checks that belong to dairy goat farming specifically. If you are setting up for the first time, our white paper « Créer une exploitation agricole » (in French) walks through funding and the agricultural qualification.
Land weighs heavily on the budget for a goat farm. Transfers published by the French tax authorities (DVF, excluding vineyards) put the median for farmland in Centre-Val de Loire at €5,480/ha in 2025, with an average of €5,892/ha over 1,195 sales. Eight transactions in ten settle between €3,003 and €9,349/ha, where the national median is €5,307/ha.
A second reference, the SAFER land value benchmark, sets vacant land and pasture at €6,260/ha for 2025, -6.1% in a year and +8.3% over a decade; the French average is €6,460/ha, and a sitting tenant costs a plot roughly 17% of its value.
The acreage settles only a fraction of the asking price. On a dairy goat holding in this region, value sits in the building and its internal layout, in the parlour and bulk tank, in the cheese room and its health approval when there is one, in the genetics and steadiness of the herd, and finally in the collection contract or the customer base already built. Weigh those against the series published by the land price observatory and put figures on your takeover with our financial calculators.
Holdings here range from a long building on deep litter, sending all its milk to a dairy, to a smaller set-up combining goat house, cheese room and farm shop. Look at the frame and roof, at air volume and ventilation, which largely governs respiratory health in a goat herd, at floors, at how batches are separated, at covered storage for hay and straw, then at the milking plant: the number of units, automatic cluster removal, washing, the state of the tank and cooling unit. A compliant cheese room, with drying room, ripening cellar and cold store, changes the whole equation: it implies an approval or an exemption, a customer base and a working week quite unlike shipping milk.
The herd is valued in its own right. Alpine and Saanen predominate, sometimes crossed, with a few herds kept on the Poitevine breed; the average age of the milking goats, the stock of replacement kids, the health status of the batch, organic management and the bucks on hand all move the asking price. Where a farmhouse and land come with the deal, insist on a line-by-line split between the production tool, the land and the dwelling: lenders and SAFER, the rural land agency, do not read them the same way.
Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher form the historic core, inside the Sainte-Maure de Touraine and Selles-sur-Cher designations, with many farms making cheese on site and dairies within easy reach. Indre continues the belt southwards, between the Brenne and the Boischaut, where the Pouligny-Saint-Pierre and Valençay designations overlap and land remains more affordable. Cher, from the Sancerrois across the Berry, combines the Crottin de Chavignol area with herds grazing permanent pasture and rougher ground.
Further north the logic changes. Eure-et-Loir and Loiret are cereal country — the Beauce and the Gâtinais — where goat units are a minority, usually run as a diversification or as a smallholding making cheese on site and selling direct towards Chartres and Orléans. Eastern Loiret does touch the Chavignol area, which keeps herds supplying a dairy. Land there costs markedly more than in the south of the region, and comes onto the market less often.
Above a certain herd size, goat units fall under the French classified installations regime: depending on numbers the farm is governed by the departmental health rules, by a declaration or by registration, and any change of operator must be notified to the prefecture. Read the order in force before making an offer, since it fixes distances to dwellings, effluent storage capacity and the spreading plan, and therefore how far the herd can grow. On the animal side, ask for the testing records, the CAEV history and the paratuberculosis monitoring, which decide what the livestock is really worth.
Legally, part of the forage land is usually rented: the rural lease carries on with the buyer subject to the landlord's agreement, and the deal remains subject to the structures control, the French authorisation regime for taking over farmland, and to SAFER's pre-emption right. Where a cheese room is included, check the health approval, whether it transfers, and any commitments attached to the designation. A handover goes far more smoothly when the seller agrees to stay on for a season.
Retiring farmers, rural estate agencies and notarial offices post here as handovers come up. Narrow the results by department, area or budget, switch on the e-mail alert so that each new goat cheese farm reaches you on the day it is listed, and carry the search on to farms for sale in Centre-Val de Loire, some of which would suit a new goat enterprise.
