A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #339 - The farmers' movement: the views of Finistère farmers or peasants (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The farmers' movement was important. We therefore decided at the 
Douarnenez CJ to go and meet farmers or peasants that we know (and 
therefore from Finistère) to get their opinions. None of those we 
interviewed participated in the movement, for the reasons they explain. 
These three interviews provide a contrasting look at both the movement 
and current agriculture. ==== CA: Hello Thomas, can you tell me what 
your activity is? ---- TH: I am an organic breeder of laying hens and 
suckler cows. I have 80 hectares, 40 cows and 1200 chickens. For the 
cows, I have a grassland system[1], with total forage autonomy. It's an 
economical system, I don't buy any inputs, no feed for the cows. It is 
therefore very different from the intensive and productivist system 
which is subject to numerous purchases of inputs, and therefore to the 
fairly high prices of chemical fertilizers and animal feed. About the 
laying hen workshop, to understand the scale of my activity, a breeder 
of organic laying hens who works with a cooperative, which will only 
have to collect eggs, the standard building is 12,000 chickens. I sell 
all my eggs directly to organic stores, grocery stores, bakeries and 
supermarkets without an intermediary. In terms of income, it's half and 
half between cows and chickens.

CA: Are you an owner?
TH: No, I rent my land. I have an agricultural lease and today the lease 
is quite secure for farmers, you can't get fired unless you don't pay 
your rent. But we must be vigilant: The FNSEA and certain owners are in 
favor of relaxing the status of rural leases.

CA: How much do you manage to earn per month?
TH: Many parameters come into play in the disposable income of farmers. 
In our economical and grassy systems, we generally do quite well. As far 
as I am concerned, having been settled for 20 years, I have a little 
less loan repayment than young people who have only recently settled. My 
monthly disposable income varies depending on the year but let's say it 
fluctuates around 2,000 euros or more.

CA: Why don't others do like you?
TH: That's the heart of the debate. We are really in a mold. That is to 
say at agricultural high school, we are taught that it is essential to 
be intensive if we want to earn money. We are taught that you have to 
produce a lot of products per hectare, you have to have a lot of cows, 
you have to use fertilizer to get good yields. This is also what is 
defended by the dominant system and the majority unions. I did adult 
training called the BPREA, a professional farm manager certificate. I 
had to memorize the active ingredients in pesticides. What is 
interesting is that we, farmers in a thrifty and grazing system, are 
showing that it is possible to get by and make a living from our 
profession precisely without falling into this productivist trap.


CA: For the chickens, do you buy food from outside?
TH: It's a somewhat special production because they need well-balanced 
food. So I buy food from outside. There are farmers raising laying hens 
who make their own feed. And this is even better. But I don't have the 
land suitable for cultivation, too wet in places or not deep enough. I 
prefer to buy feed for the chickens because it is safer. I buy from a 
private group which itself buys from other organic farmers in the Great 
West, it's a concession that I have to make.

CA: We relate the farmers' movement to what we call global warming. Do 
you feel any changes in your activity resulting from climate changes?
TH: We cannot deny that, we are experiencing global warming. We will 
have warmer temperatures in summer and occasional excess rain. In 
summer, the grass will grow less. But we are lucky in Brittany to have a 
great climate, so even if it is a little hotter in summer, it is still 
reasonable.

CA: Could this lead you to change your current activity? To feed your cows?
TH: I'm going to think more about how many cows I can have per hectare 
to be self-sufficient. I have actually adapted my system to be 
autonomous so I don't have too many cows per hectare to be sure not to 
have to buy hay from outside and to have enough grass all the time. 
year. These are what we call "extensive systems", unlike intensive 
systems which have in their practices, a high density of animals per 
hectare or in livestock buildings.

CA: Did you participate in the farmers' movement?
TH: No, I didn't participate. From the start in fact, I saw who was in 
the street, I know which neighbors participated and it freaked me out 
straight away. Because at the start, it was all the most retrograde and 
disgusting things that were on the streets. The first demands were on 
fuel taxes and the price of GNR, fuel for tractors. More flexibility was 
requested, basically to have the right to do even more anything in terms 
of intensive and chemical agricultural practices.

CA: The Peasant Confederation intervened in the movement, are you linked 
to the Peasant Confederation?
TH: I'm not at the Conf. I follow their activities and I know farmers 
who are members of the Conf with whom I speak. What I think of the 
Conf's intervention in the movement is that the big priority at the 
moment is the professional elections which will take place at the 
beginning of 2025. It is also the priority of all the other unions. I 
think that the national leadership of the Conf took the position of 
participating in this farmers' movement because it was necessary to be 
there to be able to then tell the farmers that the Conf was there and 
that it contributed to certain advances. On the other hand, I will still 
add a nuance. It is perhaps good that there was the Conf because, in 
places, it carried out parallel actions without standing shoulder to 
shoulder with the FNSEA. The Conf showed that there was another 
discourse and farmers who were based on another agricultural model than 
the one defended by the FNSEA. So that was interesting nonetheless.

CA: You didn't participate in any local actions, if there were any?
TH: We must remember how this farmers' movement unfolded. Initially, it 
was a movement with reactionary, retrograde and productivist demands. It 
was only a few weeks after the start of the movement that the leadership 
of the Peasant Confederation positioned itself to call on its members to 
participate in the movement. The Conf members that I know were extremely 
surprised, either they disagreed or they supported the position out of 
loyalty. But there was no great enthusiasm to go shoulder to shoulder 
with farmers who are fighting for an agricultural system that goes the 
opposite of the one we are fighting for. And it was out of the question 
for them to go to the actions at the call of the FNSEA or the CR

CA: Have there been actions by the Peasant Confederation in Finistère or 
in western Brittany?
TH: Yes, the conference of the 29th called for some more autonomous 
actions, among others in Carhaix to make their demands heard. There is 
still something important if we want to take stock of this movement. 
What they obtained is unfortunately a big leap backward: the suspension 
of the Ecophyto plan which provided for the reduction in the use of 
phytosanitary products by 50% by 2030 if I am not mistaken. Now, it is 
the suspension and other means of calculation so that we go in the 
opposite direction of the use of fewer chemicals. It is also the 
possibility for those who have major projects, factory farms or 
intensive production, to counter people's protests. A lot of 
environmental standards have also been broken. Major industrial 
agriculture projects which will be more difficult to challenge: 
shortened deadlines for appeals and the prefect who will have the last 
word. It's a huge step backwards and I think the government seized the 
opportunity of this farmers' movement to move towards what it actually 
wanted to go. A few hundred tractors have enabled a major step backwards 
in ecological terms and a huge boost for intensive, industrial and 
productivist agriculture. For them, it is a big victory.

CA: The government had an opportunistic strategy. But around you, the 
farmers you know and who are not productivist or intensive even if they 
are conventional, they are experiencing the results of the movement.
TH: There is a clear divide. I will say that there are 80% of farmers 
who actually support this industrial system in place. Of course, I'm not 
saying that they are all jerks who do anything with total disregard for 
the environment. But still, to varying degrees, many farmers defend the 
dominant agricultural system out of conviction. To me, they are shooting 
themselves in the foot. There are around 20% who are for another model, 
often from medium and small structures. This is the current balance of 
power and we must be aware of this divide. Some people hoped that FNSEA 
management would be overwhelmed. I think that the FNSEA was not 
overwhelmed and if a section of farmers had managed to continue the 
movement to go further, it would have been worse. Most of those who 
support chemical and productivist agriculture own their land. This 
protest is a protest by landowners. Today, the average surface area of 
farms is more than 100 hectares. When you own 100 hectares, if you sell 
your farm when you retire, you will collect EUR6,000 or EUR8,000 (or 
more) 100 times, not including the sale of equipment, livestock and 
buildings. agricultural. This is something that must be kept in mind to 
understand that the interests of these farmers are incompatible with the 
possibility of a social union leading to revolutionary perspectives. 
What they only wanted was for us to respond to their demands to have 
less ecology and to have more flexibility to do anything. Being able to 
destroy hedges more easily, being able to treat closer to gardens, being 
able to use more pesticides. To do this, it was necessary to stop the 
Ecophyto plan, which was bothering them. This is not to be pessimistic, 
but there was nothing to expect in terms of social victory from this 
movement.

CA: Yet they were talking about income.
TH: Yes, that's why the Confédération paysanne managed to get involved 
in this, and also on the subject of administrative simplicity. But what 
are the ways to get there? Add more chemicals? By lowering fuel taxes? 
There is a divide. We are also in favor of having more income, but by 
practicing another type of agriculture and also by asking for a 
rebalancing of aid. All farmers receive aid, without aid from the CAP, 
today in this system, we cannot function. Today, a majority of aid goes 
to large farms and those who cultivate crops because the aid is per 
hectare. So the bigger you have a farm, the more help you have. The Conf 
is one of those who are calling for aid to be given per agricultural 
worker (per farmer) rather than per hectare.
Finally, I would like to say that the question of what type of 
agriculture we want is a question that everyone should really take up. 
What agriculture should we practice? How do we distribute production? It 
concerns us all. Succeeding in decompartmentalizing these questions is 
the fear of this great agricultural mafia. Without doubt, the majority 
of people would prefer to have healthy products on their plate from 
human-scale farms.

Appointment, March 16, 2024

Note
[1]which is dedicated to raising livestock on pastures.

THE THREE AGRICULTURAL UNIONS
The National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA), founded in 1946, is 
the majority professional union in the agricultural profession. This 
union is characterized by its support for the conventional agricultural 
system. It promotes the industrialization of farms, animal exploitation, 
and the use of pesticides. The FNSEA finds its origins in the General 
Confederation of Agriculture which opposed the Peasant Corporation set 
up by the Vichy regime, which certainly disappeared at the Liberation, 
but whose structures the FNSEA inherited. The FNSEA is thus part of a 
dual heritage of the Vichy regime and the Resistance.
La Coordination Rurale (CR) is a French agricultural union, created at 
the end of 1991. This union represents farmers of all types of 
production, in organic or conventional agriculture. It is the third 
French agricultural union, neck and neck with the Confédération 
Paysanne, far behind the first, the FNSEA on joint lists with the Young 
Farmer union. The CR is classified politically on the right, and is 
sometimes considered to be close to the extreme right.
The Peasant Confederation "Conf'" was created on April 18, 1987. It is a 
French agricultural union. She is a founding member of the European 
Peasant Coordination, Via Campestina and Attac. The Confederation is 
classified on the left. It is the second French agricultural union, neck 
and neck with the CR. Its objective is to give a space of expression to 
farmers opposed to the productivist agricultural policy of the FNSEA. 
The Conf' will focus its fights on small-scale agriculture from the 
outset, on its recognition in decision-making bodies and on the reform 
of the CAP.

VL, organic dairy farmer
CA:Hello, VL, to start can you tell us about your operation?
VL: Hello, I have been established since 1989. I work on 70 hectares of 
grassy land with 70 cows and 20 heifers in organic dairy farming at a 
rate of one milking per day 300 days a year. My job allows me to support 
two people. I work 4 to 5 hours a day, for routine work concerning 
feeding the animals, organizing grazing or distributing fodder, milking 
and various care. Depending on the time of year, the work varies between 
three and 10 hours per day.
The year is divided into four different periods: In spring, from 
February 1 to May 1; grouped calvings. From May 1st to June 30th, it is 
the reproduction period: inseminations and matings, which involves a lot 
of observation and monitoring as well as the main grass harvests. Then 
from July 1st to December 1st: following lactation, work is more 
"quiet", as well as milking and pasture management. From December 1st to 
January 31st, it is the end of lactation and the closing of the milking 
parlor and therefore a period of rest for everyone, both animals and people.

CA: With all this, do you find time to take a vacation?
VL: Yes, I generally manage to go on vacation for two weeks either in 
July or August. I have to hire someone who knows perfectly how the farm 
works, often a former trainee trained during the year because for him 
everything is fresh in his head and in terms of his actions with the 
animals. For me it's reassuring, and so I can leave peacefully.

CA: Can you tell us how much you earn? And, also on this income explain 
to us what the share of subsidies represents?
VL: Yes, I earn around EUR50,000 including EUR18,000 from PAC assistance 
and EUR12,000 from MAEC.

CA: So, let's now get to the heart of our subject, the farmers' 
protests. How do you view this movement?
VL: To begin with, I will immediately clarify my position, I have been a 
member of the Confédération Paysanne[see box], for a long time. For me, 
the demonstrations began in the South-West and were mainly led by the 
Rural Coordination[see box], a movement created against the CAP when it 
was created in 1992 and demanding to be paid by prices and not by 
bonuses . This is the bulk of their demand. The FNSEA, I think, given 
the excitement, did what was necessary to recover the movement; this is 
due to the upcoming elections in the chambers of agriculture. This union 
calls for fewer administrative and environmental constraints. The 
Confédération Paysanne did not recognize itself in these demands, even 
though it had been fighting for months to maintain the 
agro-environmental measures that were about to be reduced.

CA: Can you explain to us what these MAECs are?
VL: The MAEC are contracts concluded between the State and farmers which 
commit each party to respecting environmental specifications subscribed 
for a period of 5 years: they allow farmers to benefit from financial 
aid in return for practices virtuous agricultural practices for the 
environment broken down into four main areas: Biodiversity, Livestock, 
Water Quality and Land Preservation.
In 2020, to everyone's surprise, the State decided to suspend these 
MAECs, outraged farmers asking for them to be maintained. The State then 
decides to relaunch them in 2023: it then releases 90 million euros for 
the implementation of new contracts when 150 million would have been 
needed given the number of interested candidates. These contracts are 
essential because they directly concern all of our current concerns 
regarding climate change issues. It was the Peasant Confederation at the 
time which stood in the way, did not give up and finally the State 
decided to respect its commitments.

CA: Let's return to the question of demonstrations.
VL: In the South-West as I was saying earlier, the demands of breeders 
were very strong to obtain better income, that's when the FNSEA came on 
the scene[see box]: clearly I think that She freaked out! Because she 
had no control over this movement at all, so she did everything to 
recover it in the media by bringing a whole bunch of delusional demands 
that had nothing to do with those of the Rural Coordination: less 
meadows, more irrigation, spraying distance reduced to a minimum from 
homes, maintenance of phytophytes and fewer health checks.

CA: Do you have an idea of what your "colleagues" installed in 
conventional employment can earn?
VL: No, all I could possibly give you would be orders of magnitude...

CA: According to our investigation, we discovered that certain breeders, 
particularly pig breeders, have multiplied their income by 3 or 4 and 
dairy farmers by 2 over the last two years. Do these figures seem 
plausible to you?
VL: Yes, it is entirely possible because from what I know, conventional 
pig breeders have seen their income increase impressively, and what does 
not make me deny these orders of magnitude is the secret visit of the 
Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau last Thursday February 22 to Eric 
Claquin in Mahalon, a pig and dairy cattle breeder in Finistère. He is 
the director of the Société Groupement Agricole en Commun of Ty Moguel, 
who declared in front of the cameras, I quote: "that he did not need 
money but that he wanted peace"!

CA: Can you describe the impact of climate change on your work? How do 
you feel about things?
VL: If I look back, my animals fed on pasture at 3/4 of the annual 
ration. And, now in the most difficult years, we are struggling to reach 
half. 2018 was a year of change. We are facing extreme and unexpected 
periods of cold, rain and drought. Which causes stress for us, for 
animals and for nature.

CA: Can you give us some figures?
VL: It's simple, before 2018, feed cost EUR25 per 1000 liters of milk 
produced. Since then, we have doubled this cost, going to EUR50/60 of 
fodder for 1000 liters of milk. To be clearer, when my cows can stay in 
the meadow to graze, out of EUR500 for 1000 liters paid, I have EUR10 in 
feed costs. On the other hand, if I have to feed them only with 
preserved fodder, this cost increases to EUR150.

March 1, 2024, comments collected by Batman and Ribine

EC, conventional pig scavenger

CA: Hello E.C, you have been our neighbor for several years now, we know 
that you are a conventional pig breeder. We know your farm because you 
were kind enough to show us around and we were delighted by this visit, 
your animals are very beautiful, we can see that they are taken care of. 
In addition, we are never bothered by odors or anything else. But, tell 
us about your operation.
EC: Since 2004, I have been a breeder and fattener with 100 lactating 
sows all year round. The farm covers 100 hectares on which I grow 
barley, wheat, corn and rapeseed, finally what I need to feed my animals.

CA: How much do you earn from this activity?
EC: I earn twenty-five thousand euros from my farm and I receive fifteen 
thousand euros from the PAC bonus.

CA: do you have an opinion on the latest agricultural movement?
EC: I don't feel concerned because our situation has clearly improved, 
but I understand the position of breeders in the southwest and organic 
winegrowers in the south, I am thinking in particular of Drôme and 
Côtes-du-Rhône. For example, winegrowers who switched to organic farming 
did not receive the support necessary for an honorable transition, not 
to mention the extreme climatic episodes, storms, hail, landslides, so 
the quality of the grapes was not there. A problem that they were not 
able to compensate with sufficient quantities.

CA: In your opinion, are there other factors in this situation?
EC: Yes, it seems to me that we need to clarify the way in which 
agricultural cooperatives operate: whatever the years, they do not adapt 
to particular situations, they want the same quality and the same yield 
all the time. I will explain it to you with the wheat which concerns me 
directly: the cooperatives are too particular about the "cleanliness" of 
the grain, when my grain contains a little greenery, "weeds", or when it 
is a little pitted of surface mold and it is no longer salable (we are 
indeed in fodder). Even if in my cultivation system I do not feel 
climate changes at the moment, I am dependent on years that are too 
humid. I have to tell you that there are two categories of wheat, bread 
wheat and feed wheat (animal feed). Bread wheat (human food) must 
contain 12% protein and obtain 76 specific weight: that is to say, a 
cubic meter must contain 760 kg of consumable wheat once sorted, 
otherwise it is no longer breadable. So, in Brittany there are only two 
areas suitable for growing bread wheat: Le Blavet is the region around 
Pontivy and the Rennes basin. The protein contained in wheat depends on 
the level of nitrogen contained in the soil, but here the soil is acidic 
and poor, we are therefore forced to enrich our soil with a lot of 
nitrogen because too acidic soil not only destroys the nitrogen but also 
makes it less well assimilated by plants. This is why in Brittany we 
never reach 12% protein and why we only harvest very little bread wheat 
on our land.

CA: Do you have the right to do without phytosanitary products?
EC: I only use these products based on the gaps and needs that I observe 
on my plots. My cultivation advisor is the technical salesman who sells 
me the seeds and the phyto products that are necessarily associated with 
them, takes the goods back from me and gives me a credit if I haven't 
used everything.

CA: What do you think of the FNSEA?
EC: I have a doubtful look, because I realize the pre-eminence and 
abuses of the federation (FNSEA) and I never wanted to join it or any 
other agricultural union.

CA: Would you consider switching to organic farming?
EC: no, it's too many constraints. In my system, despite it being 
conventional, I seek by all means the well-being of my animals: I am the 
only one to carry out my own inseminations, I do not file the teeth of 
my pigs, I do not cut their Don't wait in line and don't give them 
antibiotics.

March 14, 2024, comments collected by BATMAN and RIBINE

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4126
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