French farmers will continue to receive government support,says industry leaders
There will be no end to government support for French farmers, according to industry leaders at this week’s SIMA show, Paris.
Unlike in the UK where politicians are preparing farmers for life without support payments after 2013, the contribution farming makes to the economy, food security and the countryside is just too vast to jeopardise.
Emmanuel Lachaize, vice president of the young farmers’ movement Jeunes Agricultures is blunt about the need for support. “We have to be realistic, if we stop PAC (CAP) payments we will lose half of the farmers because agriculture is not sustainable without support.”
Disappear
Jean-Paul Papillon, economics chief of French agriculture machinery manufacturers association SYGMA agrees. “Without support payments many thousands of farmers would disappear and with them many more jobs,” said Mr Papillon. He estimated the number of French farms at 585,000 which supported up to three times as many jobs in agriculture and the food sector.
Ending government support to farmers would be unthinkable, according to the French farmers’ union FRSEA. “France will never agree to end income support to its farmers,” said Michel Masson, FRSEA president of the central region.
Despite concerns about whether the next president of France, due to be elected in May, will share current president Jacques Chirac’s enthusiasm for farming, one thing is indisputable, said Mr Masson: “Agriculture and the food sector account for 15% of the jobs in this country and no French president can afford to ignore that.”
And that, said Mr Lachaize, raised fundamental questions about the future of a truly common agricultural policy for the EU. “After 2013, we could see the end of PAC (CAP), each country will decide how to support its own farmers.”