It’s a “tendency [qui] increases more and more”, alert Tuesday, October 4 on franceinfo Guillaume Compain, Climate and Agriculture Advocacy Officer at Oxfam France, about the export from France of low-end meat to developing countries. Oxfam, Réseau Action Climat and Greenpeace published a report on Tuesday denouncing these practices harmful to the planet in the broiler, pork and conventional milk production sectors.
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To curb this phenomenon, Guillaume Compain calls on France to support “more, extensive farming, farming under a quality label, especially organic”. Modes of production which would also have the merit, he says, of making us less dependent on Russia and Belarus for the import of fertilizers.
franceinfo Is it the demand that makes this type of breeding necessary or is it because there is such a production that it is necessary to export at all costs?
William Compain: There is a strong production, so we are looking for release markets. The “by-products” of agriculture and industrial livestock farming will not find buyers in the European markets and we will suddenly seek to export them at low cost to the only markets which are ready to absorb these surpluses which are generally developing country markets. This is a phenomenon that we have already observed for a long time, but what the report shows is that this trend is increasing more and more in certain years and that the strategies of the French breeding sectors continue to be engulfed in this which is considered to be a bad strategy. It not only contributes to competing with the major producers in these developing countries, but in addition, France’s trade balance is deteriorating because we tend to export more and more low-end products and to import in return higher quality products from our European neighbours.
To be competitive on the market, do you have to produce low-end products?
We are talking about confinement in highly intensive sectors to be competitive in these low-end products.
We are strengthening practices even more, extending farms, maximizing the use of inputs and, in fact, the whole intensive model that has been criticized for years for its extremely harmful impacts on the environment and also on food workers.
Guillaume Compainat franceinfo
The concentration of the number of animals has increased. The concentration of these markets and these breeding sectors as well. These are large industrial groups which tend to concentrate more and more heads of cattle in order to develop products which are of very poor quality and which are mainly intended for export.
How to move towards more sustainable farming?
More support is needed, particularly with the common agricultural policy, for extensive farming, quality label farming, especially organic farming and a certain number of systems of mixed farming, mixed farming which make it possible to further harmonize the way of raising and, for example, to reduce the use of inputs which are highly harmful to the environment, but also to our sovereignty. We are very dependent on Russia and Belarus for the import of these fertilizers. It is also a way of gaining sovereignty. On the one hand, we will have development policies to try to support agriculture in these countries and at the same time, we will continue to heavily subsidize intensive livestock farming which will flood the markets and compete with local producers. We are in a preposterous situation that does not allow producers in southern countries to truly develop.