Demanded for a long time by the main agricultural unions, this simplification measure was announced Thursday by the Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard.
The government, in response to a long-standing request from the main agricultural unions, will put in place “a single administrative control under the authority of the prefect” for agricultural operations, announced Thursday the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard. “The department prefect is now invested with a coordination role which aims to limit the pressure of on-site inspection to a single visit per year and per farm”she said during a trip to a farm in Morigny-Champigny in Essonne.
This visit will, however, not include tax and judicial audits. Coordination concerns all State public services and establishments responsible for controls, including the services and payment agency, water agencies and even the administrative controls of the French Biodiversity Office or of the common agricultural policy (CAP).
Agricultural unions satisfied
The prefects will also be able to modulate “the temporality and geographical distribution of the control campaign” taking into account the situation of the farm and the agricultural calendar, said the minister. “Today we are laying the first important stone on the path of simplification where I want to take the agricultural world. This is only the beginning”she said before signing the circular in front of farmers, union representatives and elected officials.
The simplification of controls on agricultural operations was one of the major demands put forward by the unions during the agricultural anger movement which shook the country last winter. “Young Farmers and the FNSEA, who have been campaigning for such a measure for a long time, welcome its realization”greeted the two unions in a press release. “We remain fully mobilized, because it is not possible to wait so long for other simplification measures when they only depend on the administration”however underlined Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA, quoted in the press release. The FNSEA, the leading agricultural union, and its ally Young Farmers, are planning a new national mobilization from November 15.
