Paris International Agricultural Show

The Salon International de l’Agriculture, the Paris International Agricultural Show, is France’s great farm fair, held each year at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, on the southern edge of the city. Comexposium, the organiser, counted 437,402 visitors in 2026. The 2027 show is open to the public from Saturday 27 February to Sunday 7 March, every day from 9 am to 7 pm.

France’s regions on the stands

For a food traveller, the heart of the show is the area the organiser calls “Produits et saveurs de France, d’Outre-mer et du monde”, products and flavours of France, overseas France and the world. It invites visitors to let their taste buds travel through French terroirs and the specialities of the world.

• Named specialities: charcuterie, ciders, honey and jams, foie gras, vanilla and olive oils.

The Paris International Agricultural Show, a farm show around the food

• Animals and competitions: the show is also France’s showcase of farm animals and of agricultural competitions, so the halls go far beyond food.
• Other food fairs: Paris also hosts the Salon du Chocolat at the same exhibition centre in autumn, which makes Porte de Versailles a familiar address for food fairs.

From an 1844 fat-stock show to the 2027 edition

The organiser traces the show back to a competition of fattened animals first held in Poissy, west of Paris, in 1844.

1. 1870: the Concours Général Agricole is created in Paris.
2. 1925: the competition moves to the exhibition centre at Porte de Versailles.
3. 1964: the first Salon opens in March and draws more than 300,000 visitors.
4. 2026: for the first time in more than sixty years, no cattle come to the show, because of the health situation linked to lumpy skin disease (DNC).

The Ferrandaise, mascot cow of 2027

Since 2011 a cow of a different breed has been the face of each show. For 2027 it is the Ferrandaise, from the mountains of Auvergne.

• Uses: milk and meat, and once draught work. Its milk goes into PDO cheeses such as Saint-Nectaire and Fourme d’Ambert.
• Numbers: 200 females left at the end of the 1970s, against more than 140,000 animals at the start of the 20th century, today nearly 4,000 cows on 750 farms.