Around 400 people mobilized this Saturday, November 16 in Manche to denounce a project for giant greenhouses intended for the intensive cultivation of tomatoes.
Some 400 people demonstrated on Saturday, November 16 in Isigny-le-Buat, in Manche, to protest against a project of giant greenhouses intended for the intensive cultivation of tomatoes carried out by the Dutch multinational Agro Care, noted an AFP correspondent .
“Agrocarnage”, proclaimed two large banners brandished in the procession, gathered at the call of the Peasant Confederation in support of the Stop Industrial Tomatoes collective.
The agricultural union thus wanted not only to denounce the 32-hectare heated greenhouse project in Isigny-le-Buat but also “the monopolization of the food market by multinationals”.
“Free trade is not the only danger for farmers. Some multinationals are now food producers, in direct competition with farmers. Agro Care is the perfect example,” says the Peasant Confederation in its call to demonstrate .
The largest “tomato mega-farm” in Europe
In a calm and good-natured atmosphere, participants of all ages, accompanied by six tractors, crossed the Normandy village to music to the land where the construction project for the new Agro Care greenhouses is planned.
The Manche prefecture rejected this week the environmental authorization for this extension, which wants to increase the surface area of tomato greenhouses from 12 to 32 hectares.
If the project were to see the light of day, the installation would, according to its detractors, be the largest “mega-tomato farm” in Europe.
“The prefect said ‘stop’ but let’s remain very vigilant!” said Gérard Chauvet, co-founder of the Stop Tomates collective with Odile Marqué, a resident of the land where the extension is planned. “The land must belong to the farmers,” said the latter.
The environmentalist regional advisor Guillaume Hédouin, for his part, criticized to AFP a “project which consumes agricultural land for heated greenhouses and food production intended for export”, while crushing competition from local market gardeners according to him.
