EELV MP for Paris Sandrine Rousseau is calling for a “major plan for the transformation of agriculture”. However, she appears to disagree with farmers about the standards imposed on them and the pesticides used.
The anger of the agricultural world is growing. While this Monday already marks the fifth day of blocking actions by farmers in the country, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will receive the FNSEA this Monday, January 22 at 6 p.m. The president of the agricultural union declared that actions will be carried out “as long as it is necessary”. At the same time, MP EELV Sandrine Rousseaua figure in the environmental cause, spoke this Monday morning at the microphone of South Radio on the discontent of farmers and the deep issues affecting their profession.
Should we ease the environmental standards that weigh on farmers?@sandrousseau : “No, that’s not the subject, the subject is global warming. We must stop being in permanent denial!” pic.twitter.com/AxyTBY1jo1
— Sud Radio (@SudRadio) January 22, 2024
“The subject is global warming, not standards”
For the elected official from Paris, “the subject is not the environment, it is how we reorganize the agricultural sector. We must produce differently, with less impact on the environment, with more income.” Indeed, one of the farmers’ demands concerns wages. “I have friends of mine who talk about suicide. What should we wait for the state to wake up?” alarms Jérôme Baille, organizer of the blockade of the A64 motorway south of Toulouse, this weekend at the microphone ofEurope 1. If farmers regret not making a living from their work, Sandrine Rousseau says she “understands the anger”. On the other hand, “I am not in favor of continuing with the agricultural model as it currently is. We need intelligent discussions because today, no one has the solution.”
Not always in phase with the agricultural and livestock world, Sandrine Rousseau did not hesitate to put on the table the environmental cause that is dear to her: “The subject is global warming, not standards. How do we do it? we so that farmers can still exist? How do we ensure that this does not dry up water resources? How do we ensure that the soils are alive?” she said, still on South Radio. However, it is these environmental standards that are regularly criticized by farmers.
Standards too heavy for farmers
What is being singled out is in particular “the enactment of rules and standards that are increasingly burdensome to supporters”, as Etienne Gangneron, president of the Cher Chamber of Agriculture, reported to theAFP. Farmers also express their dissatisfaction and their fear that the “Green DealEU” which aims to halve the use of chemical phytosanitary products by 2030, leaves them without solutions to cultivate land at low costs. Especially since according to the FNSEA, there is “unfair competition” from foreign farmers who export to the EU without being held to such demanding standards.
Farmers “are not the first ecologists in France” denounces Rousseau
For her part, Sandrine Rousseau does not hesitate to question certain farmers: “the world is transforming. Farmers are the guarantors of the preservation of biodiversity.” But then, are they the first ecologists? “When they build megabasins and shave all the hedges, no, they are not the first ecologists in France.” The Paris MP regrets in particular that “some farmers overuse pesticides. We cannot reduce pesticides in France.” She is now calling for a “major plan to transform agriculture in support of farmers, not in support of the agricultural industrialists who are killing our countryside”.