They promise a huge mobilization. Several agricultural unions are calling for demonstrations starting this Monday, November 18, against the Mercosur agreements, but also to denounce the unhappiness of farmers, at the heart of a prevention day organized in Saint-Just-le-Martel, in Haute-Vienne.
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Matthieu Anoman is a cattle breeder within the Gaec de la Petite Vary, in Bujaleuf, in Haute-Vienne. While his herd of Limousin cows peacefully grazes on the green grass of his pasture, he worries. On Monday, he will participate in the mobilization of farmers. He considers it important to inform consumers about the consequences of the free trade agreement that could be signed between the European Union and Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, che South American countries grouped under the name Mercosur.
Matthieu Anoman, breeder, fears the announced competition from production from Mercosur countries.
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© Frédérique Bordes-France 3 Limousin
“We are putting forward standards on animal welfare, ecology, and we are going to bring in products, we can call them products, which in no way correspond to all of that.“, he is alarmed.
This agreement provides for almost elimination of customs duties on exports from Latin American countries: beef and poultry, sugar and corn. Productions for which regulations regarding GMOs, the use of growth hormones or pesticides are less restrictive than in Europe.
The breeding conditions in the Mercosur countries have nothing to compare with those applied here in Limousin.
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© Frédérique Bordes-France 3 Limousin
Unfair competition, numerous standards, extended hours: the difficulties that French farmers face are not new. They consider the overall situation worrying.
This Friday, November 15, a day was dedicated to the mental health of farmers in Saint-Just-le-Martel. Expressed distress alerts: “Our farmers don't work 35 hours a week unfortunately, and this fatigue is enormous, with time, with the weather, with money, with working and living conditions, it's complicated”notes Guilaine Bardou, coordinator of the prevention of unhappiness and suicide in Haute-Vienne.
Already mobilized last winter, farmers must face another difficult year, between bluetongue, avian flu and rainy weather. “This current context, between the health difficulties affecting animals and the yield difficulties in plant production, means that the distress of last year is even accentuated this year. And there, we really have great anger from the agricultural world which has the impression of having been abandoned by the public authorities“, explains the director of FDSEA 87, Sébastien Petitjean.
If all the agricultural unions oppose the signing of the Mercosur treaty, not all of them defend the same agricultural model, as the Peasant Confederation points out, and the mobilization is carried out in dispersed order.
Sporadic demonstrations have been organized in different regions for several weeks, at the initiative of the various unions Rural Coordination, Young Farmers, Peasant Confederation or FDSEA.
The FNSEA is calling for massive demonstrations starting this Monday, November 18, when the G20 meets in Brazil.
France is the only major EU country to oppose the ratification of the free trade treaty with the Mercosur countries.
