“State responses to the agricultural crisis benefit large production units more than small ones”

2024-02-04 16:30:08

Agriculture is in crisis. The anger of farmers reveals situations of distress and suffering from diverse and varied origins as the agricultural world is heterogeneous, whether from the point of view of income, debt, or working conditions.

Faced with these recurring social crises, the State generally responds, at the beginning of February, with tax measures, reductions in charges and standards, and measures to support agricultural prices. If these measures seem to benefit everyone, the largest production units benefit more than the small ones; the former then continue to “devour” the latter.

The largest farms are moving towards an agro-industrial model: corporate agriculture which most often favors simplified, standardized, highly mechanized and automated production systems. This model is based on monoculture, on increasingly larger plots, without trees, without hedges, on the excessive use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to the detriment of ecosystems, agricultural and biological diversity, and soil and water quality. It concentrates production in increasingly large buildings and reduces living things there to a machine for producing milk, meat, eggs or tasteless fruits and vegetables with a heavy carbon footprint. It leads to the emergence of agriculture without farmers for the benefit of shareholders interested in the profitability of their capital.

Redesign the remuneration system

In fact, more and more farms are controlled by non-farmer shareholders. As a result, a growing share of aid from the common agricultural policy, intended for agricultural workers according to European Union texts, is distributed to people who are not. This corporate agriculture, mainly oriented towards export, is gaining ground all over the world thanks to free trade agreements and is leading to a reduction in the number of agricultural workers, rural exodus and the impoverishment of the countryside. It concentrates and relocates production to the detriment of family and peasant agriculture and food sovereignty, both in the north and in the south. Moreover, it is developing to the detriment of the climate, biodiversity, the diversity of landscapes and the health of all.

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Given the diversity of agriculture, the system of remuneration for farmers’ labor must be overhauled to take into account production costs, which differ widely depending on the size of production units and agricultural practices, and to protect them from various impacts. of climate change. For example, aid per hectare must be abandoned for aid capped on assets; Support for organic farming must enable not only its maintenance, but its expansion. Such measures would increase the rate of recovery of family units and contribute to generational renewal, an objective that the government has declared without giving itself the means to achieve it.

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