Organic farmers gathered at the call of the Fnab, their federation, on June 2, 2021 at the Invalides in Paris. – Bertrand GUAY / AFP
- Organic farmers are not fussing over the future Common Agricultural Policy, which is currently the subject of fierce discussions and which is due to enter into force in 2023.
- More than its general framework, negotiated in Brussels, it is the arbitrations that France foresees in this new system, in particular to distribute the billions of euros of aid between its farmers, which do not pass to the actors of organic agriculture. .
- In particular the end of specific aid dedicated to organic farmers after five years, and equal treatment in the financial aid received with farms certified High Environmental Value (HVE), “far from providing the same environmental services”
“The new CAP will leave us naked”. In recent days, French organic farmers have translated their concerns into images, having their photos taken naked in their fields, the sex concealed by signs with this message. It was hammered again this Wednesday afternoon at Invalides, in Paris, close to the Ministry of Agriculture, by several dozen farmers – this time dressed – gathered at the call of the National Federation of Organic Agriculture (Fnab).
At the heart of the dispute, the news Common agricultural policy (CAP), which will apply from 2023 and until 2027 in the European Union, with a budget of around 387 billion euros over seven years, including 270 billion in direct subsidies to farmers.
The decade to act
It is one of the main expenditure lines of the European Union, which makes any reform of the CAP a sensitive issue. Even more so, which will have the main stake of greening European agriculture, which generates
11% of EU greenhouse gas emissions. With this new CAP, “we are talking about the next ten years, precisely this decade that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is decisive in reorienting the focus in order to keep global warming under the 2 ° C ”, ton at the microphone
Claude Gruffat, MEP Vets / ALE, who came to support organic farmers on Tuesday.
The latest example of these difficult negotiations: the failure of three days of discussions in Brussels last week between MEPs and agriculture ministers from the 27 EU countries on the outlines of the new CAP. Talks will resume in June, the European Council said on Friday.
French arbitrations that worry?
But it is not so much against the general framework of the CAP, negotiated in Brussels, that French organic farmers are expressing their anger. But much more on how France intends to use it. More precisely, the way in which it will distribute, among its farmers, the billions of euros in aid each year.
On May 21, Julien Denormandie, Minister of Agriculture, presented the major arbitrations of the National Strategic Plan (PSN), then confirming the divorce with the organizations of the
collective For another CAP.
One measure in particular provokes the ire of organic farmers: the disappearance of specific aid for organic farming for professionals who have converted to this mode of production for more than five years.
In detail, the future CAP will create an “eco-regime”, which conditions the payment of more or less a quarter of direct aid (ie 1.6 billion euros per year) to virtuous practices from an environmental point of view. To distribute this aid among French farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture defends an “inclusive” system, which intends to embark as many farmers as possible on the path of ecological transition.
Equal treatment with HVE that goes badly
If organic farmers will benefit from this eco-diet, it will also be the case – and at the same level – for certified farms. High environmental value (HVE). This label, introduced by the ministry in 2012, rewards and certifies farms – 8,200 today – which establish practices that are more respectful of the environment and biodiversity (planting hedges, trees, grass strips, better management of water, fertilizers, etc.). “But without going, for example, so far as to do without the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, which we do in organic, tick Adeline, market gardener for thirteen years in the Loiret. The services rendered to the environment are far from being equivalent. “
This is what pointed out the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) in a note submitted at the end of 2020 to the Ministries of Agriculture and Ecological Transition and that The world was able to consult. “The thresholds used [pour être éligible au label HVE] do not allow the selection of particularly virtuous farms * ”, she concludes.
“A race to the bottom”
Philippe Camburet, president of the Fnab, then feared a “race to the bottom”. “We had the opportunity, with this new CAP, to give real impetus to organic farming,” he begins. In the end, it is likely that tomorrow, producers will be content to obtain the HVE label, since pushing up to conversion to organic farming will not provide any additional financial assistance. “
Conversions to organic (the first five years, therefore) will still remain subsidized, for 340 million euros per year. An increased budget that hardly consoles For another CAP, a platform that brings together around thirty organizations (agricultural unions, Fnab, NGOs, etc.). “We are talking about a life project. Farmers who engage in such an approach necessarily look at the long term, recalls Mathieu Courgeau, its president and also Vendée dairy farmer. If they no longer have this support over time, they will not get started. The other fear is that of disconversions, “rare today, but which could become important in the new system,” he continues.
Hope to reopen negotiations?
The Fnab did simulations. From 200 euros on average per year and per hectare, financial aid to organic farmers would drop to 70 euros in the new system. Adeline also did the math: “For me, it will be 9,000 euros per year less on the 40,000 that I currently receive, she assesses. I will not go so far as to give up organic. On the other hand, I have just taken on an employee on my farm from whom I should perhaps part with. “This new system could also result in more expensive organic products for the consumer, or the obligation for organic producers to expand their farms to compensate for losses,” adds Philippe Camburet. That’s all we don’t want. “
However, the president of the Fnab does not give up the hope of obtaining the reopening of negotiations on French arbitrations. And tries, in this perspective, to obtain the support of other ministries. The FNAB was thus received by Barbara Pompili (Ecological Transition) this Wednesday at the end of the afternoon. And if that does not work, there will remain another hope for Mathieu Courgeau: “That Brussels retards the French national strategic plan by deeming it too unambitious on the environmental side, he says. The government is expected to return its copy to the European Commission at the end of July. “