Two young farmers who fly a drone over their land, an agri-tech employee who watches over her crops, a fishing boat which puts its traps in the sea, agents of the National Forestry Office taking measurements on trees, a shepherd accompanying his flock to the mountains. The succession of sequences ends with this message: “We are living entrepreneurs who are preparing for the future. Join us. Thousands of jobs are to be filled. “
This major communication campaign, led by the Ministries of Agriculture and the Sea, starts this Thursday with a first appearance of this thirty-second spot in the evening on three TV channels. The campaign will run until the end of 2021, at least for its first wave, with recurring appearances on television, in the press, on social networks, street furniture … Always with the same invitation to join these “professions of living “.
The stakes are high, particularly in agriculture, where we have gone from one million farmers in 1988 to 450,000 in 2018. And that could fall further. “We are talking about professions of passion, with incredibly noble missions”, praises Julien Denormandie. Enough to convince? The Minister of Agriculture responds to 20 minutes.
What do we mean by “living professions”, for which you are launching this major communication campaign?
It is agriculture, agrifood, fishing, trades linked to the management of landscapes, forests … They all have in common to be in direct contact with nature and to be on incredibly noble missions : feed the French and take care of the environment. All these sectors are recruiting today. If we add them together, these life professions represent the second largest employment sector in France. Tens of thousands of offers are constantly being filled.
Some are also suffering … Should we, for example, expect the number of farmers to fall further in France?
Indeed, among these living professions, some face a colossal challenge of generational renewal. This is the case with agriculture. One in two farmers will reach retirement age in the next five to ten years. To compensate for these departures, it is estimated that it will be necessary to be able to install between 7,000 and 10,000 new farmers per year. Fishing is also concerned. A third of fishermen will also retire in the next five to ten years.
Why should this be of concern to all of us?
It is a food sovereignty issue for our country. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us favored products from the farm in France and called on short circuits. The French know what they owe their farmers, and their perception of the agricultural world is starting to change. Five out of ten French people had a positive image in 2015. They are seven out of ten today.
We also measure this change in the number of students enrolled in training courses in the living profession, whether in agricultural high school, higher education, vocational training. For the first time in a long time, it has increased this year with more than 200,000 registered.
Is this communication campaign the equivalent of those launched in the past on the recruitment needs of the armed forces?
The philosophy is the same, except that it is not so much the state here that is recruiting, but the private sector. We are talking about farm takeovers, hiring in the food industry, installing veterinarians, landscapers, oyster farmers… This campaign is part of the France Relance plan and will be large-scale. It also wants to be very operational, since it will refer, each time, to a web platform, entrepreneursduvivant.gouv.fr, on which will be compiled all the useful information concerning training in these living professions and the jobs to be filled.
We are targeting all profiles with this campaign, both young people and those French people who want to convert to jobs that have meaning, jobs of passion. We know that they are even more numerous since the Covid-19 pandemic. Once again, there are tens of thousands of jobs to be filled, very diverse, very innovative, and which offer real career opportunities.
But being a farmer, like other living professions, is also often weeks when you do not count your hours, very low wages, sometimes little consideration, debt …
In recent years, the significant progress made in terms of machinery and the digital exploitation of agricultural data has already had significant impacts on the improvement of the working environment. Agriculture is innovating a lot on these subjects. In 2017, one in two drones used for professional purposes in France was in the agricultural sector.
We are well aware that passion is not everything and that we must ensure that the remuneration of agriculture is improved. We are working very hard on this subject. The government supports in this sense the bill, known as “Egalim 2”, adopted in the National Assembly last week. It will establish stricter rules in the three-way trade negotiations that are played out between farmers, manufacturers and mass distribution. In particular based on the price of agricultural material. Once it is fixed by a contract, it can no longer be renegotiated by manufacturers and mass distribution. The specificity of our agriculture is to be a quality agriculture, it must be remunerated as such.
Should we further develop this profession of farmer? That they are no longer only remunerated for their production, but also according to the environmental services they render?
It is already a reality. Farmers, like all those who work in these living professions, have seen the effects of climate change long before the rest of society. What farmers cherish most is soils, which are powerful natural carbon sinks. In other words, they are already today the main players in capturing carbon and limiting climate change. We are currently working with the agricultural sector to further improve and enhance these carbon capture techniques. This will also be the case with the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) [qui s’appliquera à partir de 2023], in particular with the eco-diet system. Part of the income support that farmers will now receive will be conditional on the implementation of environmentally virtuous practices.
Precisely, organic farmers deplore the way in which France plans to distribute CAP aid. Particularly in this aspect of the eco-regime, where they criticize the equality of treatment between farms engaged in organic farming and those labeled High environmental value, a label qualified as “greenwashing” …
A lot of false things have been circulated on this subject. Contrary to what has been said, we are not going to reduce aid to organic farming in the future CAP. On the contrary, we are going to allocate 1.7 billion euros to it over five years, an increase of 30%. We are choosing to put the package on aid for conversion to organic and not on maintenance aids, a choice that we have already made in 2017. We import 30% of the organic products that we consume, so the stake priority is the conversion of new farmers to organic.
Then, on the question of farmers who will be able to benefit from eco-regimes, I regret this tendency that some have to want to oppose agriculture to each other. Organic is very good, it must be supported. We are doing it. But other modes of agriculture have positive impacts on the environment. This is the case with conservation agriculture, where we no longer plow the land in order to better keep carbon in the soil. This is also the case when farmers replant hedges, put their sheep in the mountain undergrowth, thus helping to fight against the outbreaks of fires, or start growing legumes, vegetable sources of protein for which we are now very dependent on foreign countries, especially for soybeans. What should we say to these people? This is fine what you are doing, but since you are not organic, you are not entitled to these aids. This is not reasonnable.