the minister announces new aid of 60 million euros

The support plan for organic production will be endowed with 60 million euros, learned franceinfo from the Ministry of Agriculture. This device is formalized Wednesday, May 17 by Marc Fesneau, during a trip to the Oise. As for the modalities to benefit from it, they will be fixed with the professionals, explains the entourage of the minister.

>> Agricultural fair: why the organic sector is in the midst of a growth crisis

This plan is in addition to the emergency aid of 10 million euros announced at the last Agricultural Show. Such an amount, “it’s absolutely contemptuous, anecdotal”, reacted at the time the spokesperson for the peasant confederation, Nicolas Girod. The president of the majority agricultural union FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, asked him in mid-April for a “massive plane”of “50 to 100 million euros”.

A 7% decline in sales

The organic farming sector is facing an unprecedented crisis. In 2022, sales of organic products fell by more than 7% in supermarkets, according to the firm NielsenIQ, and supply now exceeds demand. What discourage conversions to organic, or even worse: that some organic farmers return to conventional.

To avoid such a scenario, the government does not rule out resuscitating, in a way, the maintenance aid abolished in 2017, by drawing on the fund intended to help farmers switch to organic. If there is money left in this envelope of 340 million euros, by the end of the year, it is possible that it will be paid to organic farmers in difficulty, we explain to the ministry.