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Epicenter of farmers’ discontent last winter, the region of Toulouse will she once again be the one from whom anger will come? Like a dish of cassoulet that never stops simmering, the pot is boiling more than ever in Haute-Garonne, where the main agricultural unions are concocting new actions…

“A growing discontent”, among Young Farmers 31

“The countryside is starting to swarm,” whispers Mathieu Maronesedeputy general secretary of the Young Farmers of Haute-Garonne (JA31), the department’s first union. This cereal farmer based in Bonrepos-Riquet, northeast of the Pink City, testifies to the “rising discontent”.

This is felt both at the livestock level, with the health crisis that we are experiencing, and at the cereal level, very affected on the one hand by a drop in yields linked to the weather and pest insects, and the other by a sharp fall in prices.

“Being dependent on the world stock market is not our job”

While “the wheat prices have fallen by around 30% in two years”, it is according to this farmer “even more catastrophic on the sunflower that we are in the process of harvesting, whose prices have been halved over the same period.

A confusing context, for Mathieu Maronèse: “Being dependent on the world stock market for our crops and our production, among small farmers in the Toulouse region, it is not our job, and we have difficulty understanding it.”

Added to this are the “still high non-road diesel charges” and a “generalized increase in taxeswhich took between 5 and 10%.

FDSEA 31 is also “in complete fog”

“We are in the fog complete,” confirms Laura Serrespresident of the FDSEA 31. “The year was complicated in terms of weather, but also due to political turbulence. And despite the new government, we do not know what will happen with the agricultural orientation law on which we are counting a lot…”

Since January? “Farmers don’t see anything falling back”

Both assure that since the massive demonstrations at the beginning of the year, almost nothing has changed. “Since January, farmers have not seen anything fall on their farms. And even if the work was slowed down with the dissolution, the non-compliance with the commitments made by the State poses a credibility problem for our unions,” says Mathieu Maronèse. “I fear that we will have more and more difficulty controlling these farmers who are in great difficulty. Some people have nothing to lose.”

“Many of them are wondering how they are going to pay the bills at the end of the year,” adds the deputy general secretary of JA 31, when his colleague from the FDSEA, a cereal producer at Avignonet-Lauragaissupports: “Since we came out last January, we have been waiting desperately, it’s been dragging…”

We don’t feel any enthusiasm for the agricultural world. We feel like we are left behind in society. Since we cannot be heard, we will have to say it, louder, louder.

“Some people imagined that everything was resolved”

Should we expect new large-scale agricultural demonstrations in Toulouse and the region? “We’re going to have to come out again,” says Mathieu Maronèse. “Some people imagined in January that everything was resolved, that there were no more problems. But it was too beautiful. Being a trade unionist, I never believed in it.” For this activist, “there is an urgent need to revolutionize everything in the management of the agricultural world”.

And now, remove city signs?

“For the moment, farmers are very mobilized about the harvests and the seeds that will follow,” observes Mathieu Maronèse. “They focus on their core business and are therefore less available for large-scale events, but work in the fields will not prevent small mobilizations.”

Because on the JA side, we are already preparing “local actions”. What, precisely? “Each canton is free to decide what it wants to do.”

After turning over the town entrance signs last year, to indicate that we were walking on our heads, farmers began to remove them this year, because now, we no longer know where we are going… It could be an idea.

The FDSEA will “apply pressure again in mid-October”

“Until then, we have been courteous. Until then…” storms Laure Serres. For her part, she promises “some well-conducted and targeted actions to show that we are still here and not totally inclined to disappear”. The president of FDSEA 31 announces the color: “We are going to put back a courtesy squeeze around mid-October.

It’s time to pay CAP premiums, but some of us still haven’t received what they should have received last year… Farmers should not be taken for fools!

A new burst of brilliance “for state services” is therefore in the cards, because, she says, “he must understand that at some point, he must take responsibility”. Are we going to see the tractors rolling in? in Toulouse ? “We like the city center,” she smiles, “it’s not our job to organize processions in city centers, but we can’t disappear without saying anything.”

Road blockages at the end of the year?

Mathieu Maronèse makes no secret of it: he is “not the biggest fan of the actions in Toulouse, because it never leads to anything” in his eyes. “It’s more celebratory than angry. THE strategic blockages are much more meaningful than a stroll through the city center.” The JA could therefore toughen its tone in a second phase: “Depending on the outcome that the public authorities give to our demands, we will consider road blockages before the end of the year.

What will other union organizations do? Rural Coordination has already put the cover back in September, by covering almost all of the radars in the Gers, but also in the Tarn… As for the famous “Ultras of the A64”, the association of Jérôme Bayle, leading figure in the latest agricultural protest, would be in the starting blocks for bring out the tractors…All this with a few fewer professional elections which promise to be contested in January 2025.

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