Today, 60% of fruit and 40% of vegetables consumed in France are imported. The government announced on Wednesday March 2 that its plan to “reclaim” France’s sovereignty in fruit and vegetables, currently 50% imported, would be endowed with 200 million euros in 2023 and supplemented by a similar investment from professionals.
During the presentation of this plan at the Agricultural Show, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, announced that it would be financed thanks to credits from the France 2030 plan for the year 2023. The State, he specified, has the will to invest an equivalent sum for the sector for several consecutive years.
For Laurent Grandin, president of the Interfel fresh fruit and vegetable association, this plan will make it possible to define “what will the market gardening and arboriculture of tomorrow be like”with the aim of “regain 10% market share” in ten to fifteen years.
“Major investments”
In detail, a quarter of the public funding announced will be devoted to arboriculture, to allow the purchase of protective nets once morest insects or hail in orchards, or to invest in weeding robots. Market gardening will benefit from an equivalent sum of 50 million euros which will be used in part to build greenhouses for vegetables. That “requires major investments, but which will bear fruit very quickly”assure Laurent Grandin.
A third part of this endowment will be used to modernize equipment and “avoid dead ends” on phytosanitary products for sectors such as the cherry sector, which will suffer from the ban on the insecticide phosmet.
One of the objectives, in line with the Ecophyto 2030 plan announced Monday by Elisabeth Borne, will be to identify the phytosanitary products which might be banned in the coming years and to seek alternatives.
A final section will be devoted to supporting research and encouraging the consumption of fruit and vegetables, which is below nutritional recommendations, in particular through food education programs in schools. “There is a political responsibility there, a public health issue” combat obesity in children, especially “in the most disadvantaged areas”, underlined Laurent Grandin. Less than half of adults consume five fruits and vegetables a day as recommended by health authorities, according to the ministry.
