Din recent days, tractors have been leaving the farms and returning to the path of protest and demands. Anger has been brewing for months, after erupting at the start of the year, a time calmed by promises that did not come to fruition. Climatic and health hazards have hampered the return to the fields of farmers, engulfed in a slump from which they see no way out. They promise: in mid-November, they will return to battle.
1 Mercosur lights the fuse
If the reasons for despair have multiplied for farmers since the winter demonstrations, it is the prospect of new negotiations around an EU-Mercosur free trade agreement which lights the fuse. The wick of anger that rumbled underground and that farmers, caught in the climatic and health turmoil, had no other choice but to keep down their throats. It will erupt and the first mobilizations here and there, like the week of October 21 in Gironde, are only the first sparks.
This EU-Mercosur agreement, in other words between the European Union and the Alliance of South American countries, has been talked about for almost twenty-five years without, however, being signed in 2019, having been ratified. However, while France, faced with agricultural mobilizations, reaffirmed, at the beginning of 2024, its opposition to this free trade treaty, the European Commission continued the negotiations. Ratification could be sealed on November 18 during the G20 summit in Rio.
First sparks of anger, ten days ago, in front of the Périgueux prefecture.
Philippe Greiller / SO
On paper, the treaty aims to reduce tariff barriers between the two trading blocs. In future practice, French farmers see this as an easier entry into the European market of products “far removed from the standards imposed on the agri-food industries and European farmers”, particularly in terms of the use of phytosanitary products and animal welfare. or even labor law. And to point the finger at “unfair competition”.
2 Fevers rise and crops fail
And Mercosur has only capsized a very loaded boat in recent months. If agricultural anger has been suspended on promises, climatic and health hazards have only fueled it. The torrential rains of winter and spring delayed sowing and impacted the French soft wheat harvest with a drop in volume of 26 million tonnes (-26%) compared to 2023, or a figure of 3 billion euros. business soared, the worst harvest in forty years.
For breeders, this means less fodder when they are affected by health hazards: epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), introduced in France in the fall of 2023, which affects cattle and bluetongue (BFT). of serotype 3 which adds a new deadly shadow over the heads of sheep and cattle – when FCO 8 has already been installed for several years… Of course, the vaccines have left the laboratories but there is not one for everyone and they are not all supported by the state.
Marion Mouchague / SO
Young Farmers (JA) and FDSEA gatherings were organized the week of October 21 in different departments such as Gironde and here, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in Pau.
Speaking of vaccination, the ducks are entitled to their second campaign but a downside is that the State only covers 70% of the cost (compared to 85% during the 1st).re campaign) and only until December 2024… while waiting for the new government to commit to the future…
3 Dissolved promises
If the agricultural world is uplifted, it is because the difficulties follow one another without its situation being legislatively taken into account. It must be said that the dissolution of the National Assembly last June brought down the texts that had been promised to it. The agricultural orientation law? It took more than two years of gestation, a complete overhaul in the aftermath of the demonstrations and adoption with forceps at first reading by the deputies, before the dissolution cut its legs.
The question of prices and farmers' remuneration? There too, two deputies, including Charentaise Anne-Laure Babault, were entrusted with a government mission on the subject with the focus being on version 4 of the EGalim law. Interviews, consultation… and the dissolution left everything in suspense.
All summer, farmers have been warning politicians, asking them to urgently take up the agricultural cause. Minister Annie Genevard affirmed a few days ago “that the agricultural orientation law will resume its journey in the Senate before the end of the year”, and we are talking about a public session in Parliament on January 27, 2025. On the EGalim law and distribution of value, no sounds, no images.
And by then, farmers will be in the streets and in front of the prefectures. All in the context of a union campaign, a few weeks before the Chamber of Agriculture elections.
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