Frost, floods, drought… In recent months, French farmers and their crops have been affected by numerous natural disasters. Faced with their concern about the next events that could occur, Emmanuel Macron, traveling to Corbières-en-Provence (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), announced Friday September 10 that the State would provide 600 million euros per year to compensate farmers who are victims of these climatic disasters. Following an extreme frost episode that affected ten of the thirteen metropolitan regions in April, the government announced that it wanted to fundamentally change the complex crop insurance system.
“You are the first to be affected by climate change, he explained, during a visit to the agricultural fair Les Terres de Jim, an annual gathering of Young Farmers. These events, like frost and flooding, become recurrent. “” We want to create a French crop insurance system to have the fastest possible response when we are affected by an agricultural calamity “, he then announced.
These French and European state funds will make it possible to finance the national solidarity system for the most serious losses, such as those linked to the frost this spring, as well as to partially subsidize insurance for medium risks. Currently, less than 30% of farmers are insured against climatic hazards, with large differences depending on the sector.
Towards an Egalim 2 law
During this meeting, Emmanuel Macron also pledged to have the Egalim 2 law adopted, before the trade negotiations this winter, which seeks to ensure that the cost of production is taken into account in the price paid to producers. The first Egalim law, adopted in the fall of 2018, failed to achieve this goal. However, this text was intended to better distribute value throughout the food chain, between farmers, manufacturers and distributors.
Responsible for evaluating this first law, Serge Papin, the former leader of the Système U group, made a report last March proposing nine avenues to improve the income of farmers. In particular, it concluded that the purchase prices of the agricultural production of certain distribution brands or of the dairy sector had “Effectively revalued the first two years after the entry into force of the law, but [que] this n’[avait] not the case for all sectors ”. To improve the situation, the document proposed in particular to focus on “The contract between the farmer and the first processor, [qui] must become the common thread of the final negotiation ” and serve as the basis for pricing.
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