The environmentalist senator from Paris Yannick Jadot believes that the ecological standards to which farmers are subject cannot be held responsible for the state of health of French agriculture.
As anger rises among farmers and actions multiply across the country, particularly in Occitanie with the blocking of several motorways, the environmentalist senator from Paris Yannick Jadot spoke this Monday, January 22 on X (formerly Twitter). According to him, the strict standards called into question by farmers are not the real problem: “Unbearable talk about environmental standards that would kill agriculture. It’s false! You only have to look at the dramatic use pesticides or irrigation” he said.
“By Friday, France will be paralyzed”
For their part, farmers seem helpless and question the excess of environmental standards they are faced with. Taking the example of hedges, the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau tried to explain this Monday morning on France Inter : “Why don’t farmers do it? Because there are 14 regulatory texts” while hedges are known for their virtues against erosion.
The compensation is considered “too late”. Asked about BFMTV, the cattle breeder in Volvestre Jérôme Bayle says he is ready to “go to Paris and paralyze the capital”. Faced with the seriousness of the situation, he warns: “I am announcing to you that by Friday, France will be paralyzed.”
An unfair agricultural model for Yannick Jadot
For Yannick Jadot, the debate on standards “above all avoids public debates and within the agricultural profession on the agricultural model which for 40 years has concentrated 80% of aid on the 20% richest farmers and production of the most intensive in the service of agro-industry! It is this model which precarizes, isolates and condemns too many farmers. Up to 2 suicides per day and 27 farms which disappear daily! Another model exists, less supported and too often ignored: that of tens of thousands of farmers who have chosen a model that is more socially just, economically sustainable and respectful of nature: agro-ecology and organic! Let’s talk about it. They are the solution!” It could therefore be very difficult for the two camps to agree on the subject.