At the national level, farmers from Rural Coordination are planning to “march on Paris” this Sunday, January 5. Several Altiligerians should make the trip.
Long in the background in the department, the union has been more incisive for some time. It has around sixty members (in most local productions) including a certain number of new members, according to Jérôme Batret de Retournac, its departmental and regional representative. The movement hopes to win seats in the next elections to the Chamber of Agriculture, the campaign for which begins Tuesday January 7 and will end on the 30th of the month. Until now, he had only one representative, who did not complete his mandate. The union has just named its head of list. This is Charlotte Morin-Chabaud, 33 years old, who alone operates a horse farm in Les Boiroux, commune of Arsac-en-Velay. She breeds paint horses and quarter horses, gives American riding lessons, and owns an equine boarding business. The farm is home to a total of 55 horses.
The operator joined the union movement last summer. Established outside the family since 2018, on Alain Reymond's suckling farm, the young woman sold her last Aubracs in 2022 to devote herself exclusively to horses on 72 hectares. Charlotte Morin-Chabaud assures us: “Agriculture has never been in such bad shape. Costs continue to increase. To talk only about my activity, many hesitate to take the step to become an operator, fearing not being able to make a living from it. Isn't that a sign of discomfort? “Horses are having difficulty establishing themselves in Haute-Loire in the face of cattle breeding.”
Race for hectares and… bonuses?
The head of the list defends a hard line in the face of the very symbolic free trade issue, or Mercosur treaty.
She wants to facilitate access to land, because, she says, “it is always the same people who have the land and have access to information before anyone else”. And to ask ourselves: “Do we want areas to feed the animals or to have more bonuses? “. On the game of expansion, she says she is skeptical: “Are large farms generating more income? “. Charlotte Morin-Chabaud invites “to respect all types of agriculture”. Within a few days, the list of 18 members (plus two substitutes) will be presented and the program revealed. Can the somewhat noisy speech of Rural Coordination seduce Haute-Loire?
The head of the list invokes, as is often the case during electoral periods, “pressure” exerted on “the base”, without providing evidence, and which would slow down certain farmers from joining minority unions. The Coordination is struggling to “recruit” members in certain sectors, particularly in Brivadois where it is absent, a stronghold held, it is true, for a long time, by the FDSEA and the JA, several representatives of which have been and still are in the responsibilities.
