2023-03-02 23:00:00
On the occasion of the major annual meeting of the International Agricultural Show (SIA), the Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty unveiled the Government’s plan to try to stem the spiral of downgrading that the fruit and vegetable sector.
The Economic Affairs Committee of the Senate is delighted to have finally been heard, even belatedly, to defend the fruit and vegetable sectors whose loss of competitiveness has been established and documented for a very long time.
At the end of 2022, in their report on the competitiveness of Ferme France, senators Laurent Duplomb, Pierre Louault and Serge Mérillou recalled the extent of the loss of competitiveness of French agriculture, and particularly of the fruit and vegetable sector, for which 71% of our fruit consumption is imported and 28% of our vegetable consumption. The reasons for this lack of competitiveness are known: productivity at half mast due to a lack of capacity to invest, excessive labor costs, particularly for sectors with a strong need for labour, Franco‑French overtranspositions of European standards creating distortions of competition and opening up our internal markets to our competitors, or even weak defense of the State and of the European Commission for Agriculture in free trade agreements.
Faced with this observation, the Senate will examine in May an ambitious bill intended to remove the main obstacles to the competitiveness of French agriculture, by going far beyond the fruit and vegetable sector alone and tackling body the issues of standards, taxation, the link between the French and their agriculture or even access to water.
The senators point out that at the end of the Government’s plan, with an expected increase in self-supply of 10 points by 2035, France will still be less autonomous than twenty years ago (loss of 14 points over the period) for their consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.
The Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee will be particularly vigilant to ensure that the commitments made actually materialize over time and over the long term. It will be attentive, in particular, to ensuring that the 100 million euros from the agricultural equipment window of France 2030 result in calls for projects and expressions of interest adapted to the reality of the sector, so that the allocated credits are truly well eaten. The flexibilities promised in the context of the marketing authorizations (MA) issued by ANSES will also be scrutinized, with the aim of better reconciliation between the essential health precautions, which must apply above all at the level of the European Union, and the economic realities of the sectors, in particular of the most vulnerable.
Of course, other agricultural sectors require an emergency plan among which, in the first place, breeding.
Philippe PÉJO – Senate Communication Department
01 42 34 35 98 – press(@)senat.fr
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