What sets farms for sale in Bouches-du-Rhône apart from the rest of Provence is the plain. Between the stony Crau, the Camargue delta and the silt soils of the lower Durance, this department offers wide, workable parcels, nearly all of them commanded by an irrigation network built by hand over centuries. The properties gathered on this page come from growers approaching retirement, from notarial offices in Arles and Salon, from agencies dealing in rural land and from advisers handling farm handovers. Every listing states the usable area, the soil, the irrigation regime, the buildings and the working assets included. All of them add to the nationwide list of farms for sale in France.
What follows helps compare what at first sight cannot be compared: land value depending on whether it is gravity-irrigated or dry-farmed, the map of productions, the districts where holdings still come free and the checks to run before an offer. Our white paper « Créer une exploitation agricole » (in French) picks things up from there: which legal form to choose, how the bank round is built, what has to be filed first.
Land forms the base of a farm's value. DVF, the property sales database published by the French tax administration (vineyards excluded), records a 2025 median of €20,637 per hectare in Bouches-du-Rhône (13), an average of €19,365 and 24 sales; four transactions in five fall between €10,674 and €24,734, against a national median of €5,307. * Fewer than 30 recorded sales: indicative value.
The SAFER land value benchmark sets €16,720 per hectare for vacant land and pasture offered for sale in the same year, -4.2% over one year and -2.1% over ten, against €6,460 nationally. SAFER publishes no local figure for let land, too few sales being recorded; nationally, land sold with a farm tenancy in place trades at a discount of about 17%.
Against the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, whose median is €13,518 per hectare, this department sits 53% higher. For commune-level detail and comparisons with neighbouring areas, see our land price observatory, then cost your purchase with our financial calculators.
Three emblematic systems share the plain. Crau hay, the first forage anywhere to earn a protected designation of origin, rests on meadows flood-irrigated from centuries-old canals: specialist crops here also cover Camargue rice, seed production and nursery plants. Market gardening holds the Baux valley and the land around Saint-Rémy, Châteaurenard and Noves, under cover and in the open, with wholesale outlets a short lorry run away. Fruit growing combines olives on the Alpilles slopes and in the Baux valley with stone-fruit orchards on the left bank of the Durance.
Livestock takes the ground cropping cannot. Transhumance moves sheep flocks from the Crau steppe to summer pasture in the Alps, while Camargue manades maintain marsh and salt-scrub with local-breed cattle and horses. A working farm in this setting is judged on how owned land, rented land and grazing agreements interlock — three statuses that never transfer at the same price or on the same timetable.
The Crau, around Saint-Martin-de-Crau, Istres and Salon, sets two worlds against each other: irrigated hay meadows, keenly contested and rarely released, and dry steppe given over to grazing. The Camargue around Arles, as far as Salin-de-Giraud, offers the largest areas in the department, with salinity and water-management constraints that explain their values. The Alpilles foothills, from Mouriès to Maussane, Eygalières and Saint-Rémy, concentrate olive groves and small estates in strong demand, often as much for their setting as for their output.
Eastwards, the Aix country, the Trévaresse ridge and the approaches to Sainte-Victoire present fragmented parcels where residential demand pushes bidding up. To the north, the Durance plain towards Sénas, Mallemort and Orgon stays the steadiest district for turnover: deep soils, organised irrigation, quick access to packing stations.
Water here is not bought parcel by parcel: it is managed collectively. Much of the land depends on growers' irrigation associations that maintain the canals, set the watering rota and levy an annual charge. Before any offer, establish which association the property belongs to, what volume or watering time it is entitled to, what condition the sluices and feeder ditches are in, and whether restriction orders have already cut a season short. A parcel that loses its water entitlement loses most of its agronomic worth.
Add the constraints of a closely regulated territory: protected wetlands and a regional nature park in the Camargue, landscape protection across the Alpilles, nitrate-vulnerable zones, and health rules for livestock buildings. The right to farm depends on the regional structure plan and on a prefectural authorisation above certain thresholds, while SAFER Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, notified by the notary, may pre-empt. A grower already working the land, lastly, holds his lease and comes first if the owner sells.
In this department the quickest sort starts with the water regime, then the district: the Crau, the Camargue, the Alpilles and the lower Durance are not prospected the same way. Add the production and the budget afterwards. An e-mail alert flags new listings the day they appear, and any owner can post a property directly. A broader view opens from farms for sale across Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
