Yohan Grelet is a market gardener near Clermont Ferrand. Under these greenhouses, he grows lettuces, carrots, and tomatoes. Its 80 hectares of agricultural land hold the “High Environmental Value” label, like nearly 30,000 farms in France.
To justify this designation, Yohan Grelet must implement certain practices, listed in specifications drawn up by the Ministry of Agriculture. These gestures for biodiversity are noted. It takes 40 points to get the label.
“It’s actually semi-organic”
Irrigate your plot with a drip system, for example, gives up to six points. Using less phytosanitary products, pesticides for example, gives you 0 to five points. An incentive but not binding scale. “If we have an attack of aphids or a disease of the lettuce, we have to intervene because in fact we are not going to watch our lettuce die”explains Yohan Grelet.
“‘High Environmental Value’ does not mean 0 treatment. We are obliged to keep a little leeway.”
Yohan Grelet, HVE farmerat “L’Oeil du 20 heures”
By creating this label in 2012, the ministry intended to promote more sustainable agriculture, halfway between organic and conventional. Ten years later, has the objective been achieved? “The effect of HVE certification is limited overall. (…) The majority of farms can easily access HVE certification, so the extent of the changes to be made to be certified is very low”can we read in a report by the French Office for Biodiversity dating from October 2022.
This label, which is less restrictive than that of organic farming, has enabled the number of certified farms to be multiplied by 30 over the past four years. In some supermarkets, HVE fruits and vegetables sometimes replace organic products, which are more expensive and whose sales decline with inflation. “The brand has chosen to take this rather than organic, it must already be cheaper, after that there are still treatments, but much lighter, much less harmful for the person, it’s semi-organic in fact”explained to us a salesman.
Commercial strategy
A supermarket intermediary claims that some farmers are being pressured for commercial reasons. “The market gardeners were either referenced because they were ‘HVE’, or they were dereferenced because they did not take the label”, he explains.
“We had to quickly respond to something that looked like organiche adds. All of this was used to feed the rays. And the average consumer, he will say to himself: ‘It’s not organic but I will do a good deed by buying HVE’, but there is still deception on the goods.”
According to some organic producers, this label would maintain confusion. Last January, the Federation of Organic Farmers filed a lawsuit against the “HVE” label, for misleading the consumer.
Jean-Marie Roy, organic farmer in Vendée, believes that the HVE label is an unfair competitor. “When we are on criteria like these, I say to myself, it pulls agriculture down. We plant three trees and two hedges and we get a good mark, but in the end we haven’t solved the problem. problem of agriculture that uses pesticides and chemicals.”
Contacted, the Ministry of Agriculture denies the accusations. He explains that the farms are checked every 18 months and that the HVE label is not a competing label but complementary to organic farming.
Among our sources (non-exhaustive list):
HVE key figures
The directory of HVE labeled farms
The Organic Agency
OFB report October 2022
HVE specifications