Farmers: why the cup is full and the anger can no longer be contained
They poured out their exasperation and their demands at the start of the year for weeks, then they returned to the fields, loaded with promises. Ten months later, climatic and health hazards have further deepened the disarray and the dissolution of June swept away the promises. Farmers return to battle
The State had already ordered 11.7 million doses of vaccines against bluetongue serotype 3. The 2 million new doses will be added to this total and will “ensure optimized vaccination coverage” according to the ministry.
A strategy against epizootics
The Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard, traveling in Tarn, also announced the holding of animal health meetings in January 2025 aimed at “taking back a little control” against the epizootics which are harming French livestock farms. “We all need to sit around the table, not only professionals, breeders, but also laboratories, research institutes, state services, and think about a shared strategy so that “we can regain control a little, not always suffer these epidemics,” declared the minister during a press briefing on the sidelines of her trip to a sheep farm in Montgey (Tarn).
Bluetongue serotype 3, a viral disease transmitted by a midge, is wreaking havoc in Europe. Not transmissible to humans, this epizootic has spread at high speed in France since its first detection in the North in August. There were more than 7,000 households as of October 30.
The minister also said she wanted to drive a change in strategy at the European level, with the objective of “coordinated research to find vaccines which can be multi-targeted, which do not only treat one type of variant, because it is a frantic race and We will always be late.”
The threat of action in November
Annie Genevard, who was making her second trip to Occitanie after a visit to the Pyrénées-Orientales in mid-October, stressed that she wanted to continue the “dialogue”, while a new episode of actions by angry farmers was looming from the 15th. november. She recognized that the 75 million euros in the emergency fund announced at the Cournon-d'Auvergne (Puy-de-Dôme) breeding summit at the beginning of October “would not be enough”. “This tells you the extent of the health crisis,” she noted.
The breeder Nicolas Séménou, who received the minister on his farm with his dual role as co-secretary general of the Young Farmers of Tarn, confided at the end of the visit that he did not know if the announcements would make it possible to alleviate the “economic distress of an entire sector.” “If there are no concrete measures for farmers' income, it will be difficult to contain certain people who currently have nothing to lose,” he added in reference to the mobilization announced from November 15.
