Emmanuel Macron called on Friday to “buy” and “consume” French, because the defense of “agricultural and food sovereignty” is “the mother of battles” in the context of the war in Ukraine and the climate and energy crises.
“We are going through a very special, serious, difficult period, which requires the mobilization of all”, declared the Head of State in a speech at Terres de Jim, the annual meeting of young farmers, which is held this weekend. -end in Outarville (Loiret), in Beauce.
Don’t “wake up hungover”
“This agricultural and food sovereignty” is “absolutely essential (…) it is the mother of battles” and “we need all our compatriots so that they understand that buying French, consuming French, loving our agriculture, is the key to keeping this sovereignty and not waking up tomorrow with a hangover,” he added, concluding his speech.
After recalling the various emergency measures taken by the government to support the agricultural sectors in recent months, he insisted on the need to “break out of dependence” on fertilizers and inputs from Russia and Belarus, and to face up to the rise in energy prices, “which is a weapon of war” for Moscow.
A law of orientation and agricultural future in 2023
Accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau, the Head of State focused his visit to Terres de Jim this year on the sensitive issue of generational renewal in agriculture, while some 100,000 farms should change operators by 2030.
He proposed that consultations be held in the next six months with a view to implementing “a renewal and future pact for agriculture”, which will notably involve a “guidance and agricultural future in 2023”, which must itself set a course for 2030.
It will be a time of exchanges “on the subjects of orientation, training, transmission and transition” between the Ministry of Agriculture, professionals, regions… which will make it possible to set the parameters of the law.
Incubator and entrepreneur fund
Emmanuel Macron indicated that a “network of incubators of innovative agricultural business entrepreneurs” will be set up, that 20 million euros will be invested in agricultural education as part of the France 2030 competence fund.
He also announced that a “living entrepreneurs fund” will be “endowed with 400 million euros” to help “young people to settle, to smooth the load for several years and to carry out the essential transformations” for s to adapt to the ecological transition.
For him, the preservation of agricultural land is linked to the agroecological transition with the key, in some cases, to a change in crops, adaptation to the climate, and the development of carbone-farmingi.e. massively develop carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.