“The situation is not improving at all”, denounces Éric Chassagne, president of the Rural Coordination in Dordogne, guest of France Bleu Périgord on Monday March 28. The war in Ukraine, which has lasted for more than a month, continues to disrupt markets. “Everything continues to deteriorate, raw material prices are rising and production costs are on the rise. Faced with this situation, we have decided to raise the alarm and ask the State to come to our aid”, he explains. Fertilizers in particular have seen their prices soar, going from 250 to 1,205 euros, almost five times more. “Under these conditions, it never happened”says Éric Chassagne.
“As a result, farmers will have to adapt to the economy”continues the president of the Rural Coordination in the Dordogne. “We are going to set up cropping systems that are less energy-intensive, the farmers just have to be able to be delivered”he continues. “With this exponential increase in the price of GNR (non-rolling diesel) also comes the risk of shortages due to supply disruptions. Operating cash is already depleted so some operators will not be able to obtain supplies.”
Pass the costs on to the selling prices
Faced with this emergency, Éric Chassagne, like most other agricultural unions, only shows himself very unsatisfied by the resilience plan unveiled by the government on March 16. “It is largely insufficient”he tackles. “We don’t even know all the ins and outs yet.” On the advance reimbursement of fuel taxes, “it can help but it was already in place”says the trade unionist. “The TICPE was already to increase on July 1, 2021, except that it has been postponed.” The Rural Coordination therefore set up own action plan. “What we are asking for is to abolish this tax for agriculture”, indicates Eric Chassagne. “We also advocate capping the price of GNR and lifting the obligations that weigh on fallow land, which are plots where nothing is produced.”
In this action plan, the agricultural union also asks pass on production costs to selling prices. In other words, make the consumer pay a high price. “Unfortunately, there is no other solution”assures Eric Chassagne. “For their part, the supermarkets are not really ready to make an effort. During the last trade negotiations, a small offer was made but it was far from covering our needs and our costs. So it is up to them to ‘it takes extra effort.” New trade negotiations have also been reopenedat the request of the government.