“We must return to the core food which is imported today”, according to the president of La Coopération agricole

The Agricultural Show closed on Sunday. Dominique Chargé, president of La Coopération Agricole, which represents three quarters of farmers, mainly small businesses, but also very large cooperatives like Sodiaal (Candia, Yoplait, etc.), comes to give us his assessment.

What will we remember from this 60^e edition of the Agricultural Show, which ended on Sunday March 3, Porte de Versailles, in Paris? The question is asked this evening to the president of Agricultural Cooperation, Dominique Chargé. Should we remember the repeated actions of farmers who disrupted this edition, or on the contrary was it a good opportunity to go beyond the caricatures to finally understand the real problems of farmers?

Dominique Charge: We were told that it would not be an edition like any other, and that was true. Indeed, in its first part, it was an eventful, hectic edition, one could even say. At the same time, I think it must remain a privileged moment of communication with the public, because it is also the agricultural festival, during this week of the show. Attendance fell by 2%. So we cannot say that there was a strong impact on attendance. On the other hand, it was also an edition marked by the anger which had emerged before the Agricultural Show. And so it was a wonderful sounding board, which made it possible to highlight what the uneasiness of farmers was today, what were the problems they encountered in the exercise of their profession.

“Behind the competitiveness issues and income issues, farmers have been asking questions that go deeper than these immediate issues they face.”

Dominique Charge

at franceinfo

They ask questions to know what trajectory and what perspectives we give them for agriculture and for food.

Many questions have been raised in recent weeks, many ideas have also been launched by the government. Which ideas do you think are most important?

Among the advances that have been made, there is first of all that of registering food sovereignty as a strong marker of our nation, of putting agriculture above everything else, as something essential to the nation. . Including it in this orientation law, for us, is a very strong marker because it allows us to highlight the fact that producing to feed is something essential, on which we must be in control. ability to regain positions that we have lost over the past twenty years.

And it’s not just words?

It shouldn’t just remain words.

“Between food sovereignty and ecological transitions, we must move forward at the pace of solutions, which allow us not to compromise acts of production.”

Dominique Charge

at franceinfo

These are the questions farmers have today. And then, it is obviously, behind all that, the competitiveness of our professions. How are we profitable? How to produce quality and accessible food for consumers? And of course, behind it, the renewal of generations, which is also the strong marker that we expect in the orientation law.

How to be competitive while offering prices that are acceptable to the consumer? The idea was launched to put in place floor prices. A new Egalim law too. What do you think should be done?

We heard this announcement from the President of the Republic, who wants to create a dynamic to build prices much more in line with the production costs of farms.

You yourself, who represent both producers and industrialists, are the heart of your profession.

This is the preferred economic model of agricultural cooperatives: being able to organize production. So this is one of our very strong measures of the 50 proposals that we made: less complexity for more competitiveness, and organizing production.

Ideally, what do you think the Egalim 4 law should look like?

Egalim has been pursuing this objective since its creation in 2018. That is to say, how to better ensure that we have remuneration, a value for food and especially agricultural production, which allows farmers to make a living from their profession ? We saw that the first Egalim laws only partially responded. In any case for some productions, it was not satisfactory. But beyond Egalim, the important thing is that we have visibility. What we think is that we lost positions today in a number of markets. We see consumers who have massively abandoned organic food and food with a sign of quality, moving towards food that was much more entry-level and mid-range.

“In this crisis situation, consumers have switched to imported food, because we are no longer present in the entry-level and mid-range food segments.”

Dominique Charge

at franceinfo

So what we want is to be able to come back with quality food, which meets specifications, and also to be able to return to this core range food that we have abandoned too much over the past twenty years.

So for you, French agriculture does not necessarily meet the needs of consumers in terms of price?

Absolutely. We have probably interpreted too much the move upmarket as being exclusively reserved for high-end food and production. And we see today that we have completely dropped out and that we are completely downgraded in these entry-level and core ranges, which nevertheless correspond to a significant share of supply in private labels (private brands) and especially in catering. outside the home. Today we are no longer present enough in canteens, the meals that we eat every day in stations and which represent a significant part of our diet. For this food, we mainly consume imported products.

“The embers stay hot”, said Arnaud Rousseau, the president of the FNSEA, the majority agricultural union. He warns that there will still be action on the ground. Are you on the same line?

I note that the answers provided are partial for the moment. They need to be clarified, also to be included in legislative acts and in strong political acts. For the moment, farmers are unable to see anything concrete on their farms. And then, what was also a strong element of the Show was the fact that we are in the electoral campaign for the European elections while Europe also has a massive impact on our activities. Today we see problems of distortion of competition, as I was just talking about with imported products.

The fact that the actions are continuing is in particular to obtain from Europe more protection and more guarantees on the fact that we will not be in a situation of distortion of competition within Europe. But also for us in France: we must obtain homogeneity, stronger harmonization of the way in which European rules are transferred into European laws. These rules must not create distortion of competition within Europe. Sometimes, the overtranspositions which are made for French farmers lead to distortions of competition on a certain number of products. This is the case with fruits and vegetables, sugar and, we see today, with poultry.