“We will increase all financial resources by 40%” intended to stop the suicides of farmers, announced Julien Denormandie, Minister of Agriculture and Food, Tuesday, November 23 on franceinfo, while the government is launching today a “collective mobilization” for better remuneration and better consideration of farmers.
franceinfo: Agriculture is one of the professional sectors where the suicide rate is the highest. What is this due to?
There are issues of compensation and consideration. Throughout the health crisis, farmers kept the country going. Thanks to them, we have never lacked for anything in the supermarkets. This compensation, this consideration are at the heart of the action we take to improve them and I believe that this is one of the elements of the distress situation that can be observed. This observation is terrible. Today, there is excess suicide mortality on farms. These are human tragedies, family tragedies, tragedies in our territories and this situation forces us to take strong measures to fight against these agricultural distresses. These are ambitious measures in terms of both substance and resources as well, since we are increasing the financial resources by 40% to come to fight against these situations.
You announce the deployment of a network of sentries throughout France. What does it consist of ?
It is about identifying weak signals, a farmer who no longer opens the letters that are sent to him, for example, because he says to himself that it must be a request for recovery.
“These sentinels are all the people who are in contact with farmers, institutions such as the agricultural social mutuality (MSA), neighbors, chambers of agriculture, associations, but also the postman, the banker, the elected local. “
Julien Denormandie, Minister of Agricultureto franceinfo
The whole community which is in contact with the farmer and which tells him: “We are there to support you, there are systems that exist, specialists who are there”. Instead of simply asking a farmer who is in bad shape to pick up his phone and call the Agri’écoute number, where there are specialists, we are going to go to these farmers. I believe that a social policy is above all to go towards and this is what we are putting in place by strengthening these networks of sentinels.
You also asked the agricultural social mutual not to write “attention put in default” on the envelopes of its letters. Why ?
When you are in the countryside and you receive a letter where it says “receivership”, everything is known. When the letter carrier brings your mail, you get the feeling that everyone around you knows about your situation. The second axis of this plan, after the “move towards”, is to put the human at the center of everything. Today, we have public policies that already exist. There are great jobs being done in the field.
“But we have to put the human back at the center of everything.”
Julien denormandieto franceinfo
Humanize our support policies, whether economic, social or administrative, and that’s what we do. The mail example is a good one.
Annual price negotiations have started between farmers and supermarkets. Would you like farmers to be able to sell their products at a higher price to increase their purchasing power?
It is not that in the name of their purchasing power, it is first and foremost a question of justice. In which socio-economic sector we would agree to sell below the cost of production. It is first of all a question of justice for our farmers, of this question of consideration because farmers do not stop working even in difficult times, but it is also about the sustainability of our food sovereignty. It is not possible to farm without our farmers. It is not possible to have farmers if they are not paid. What if not the choice? Let everyone ask themselves the question. One of the means also to support this agriculture is that we make the choice, as consumers, to buy local products, of the territory. Yes, as a consumer these prices will increase a little bit. The second aspect is that, when the consumer buys a local product, he must be sure that the price he pays does not remain in the pockets of large retailers or industrial chains. The Egalim law 2 [Loi pour l’équilibre des relations commerciales dans le secteur agricole et alimentaire et une alimentation saine, durable et accessible à tous] adopted a month ago regulates all commercial relations, that is to say, it imposes very strict rules in these negotiations between a farmer, an industrialist and a large retailer. This is essential because we all have a role to play in favor of our agriculture.