Paris (AFP)
"For us, Easter, it had to be the market of the year": Michelle Baudouin, sheep breeder in Puy-de-Dôme, wonders what French breeders are going to do with some 500,000 sheep who do not go to the slaughter due to containment.
Who will buy a leg for three or four people at the table? In the absence of family meals for Easter and other spring religious holidays, thousands of lambs will die this year from the coronavirus epidemic. This endangers that of breeders.
Sales of lamb meat have dropped drastically, depending on the profession, the French industry also being particularly affected by the closure of restaurants.
This year, the two months around Easter were to constitute 80% of the annual sales of sheep breeders. Exceptionally, the festivals of the three major Jewish, Christian and Muslim denominations were concentrated on the calendar, giving hope for a large market.
"Whether during the Jewish Passover from April 8, the Catholic Passover Sunday April 12, Orthodox on April 19, or the Muslim Ramadan from April 23 to May 23, lamb is consumed by all, it is a symbol in all religions ", explains to AFP Mrs. Baudouin, who also chairs the National Sheep Federation (FNO).
"However, there is no longer any market for lamb meat, the fridges are full and the slaughterhouses of the cooperatives refuse our animals," she protested.
- New Zealand competition -
"Nearly 500,000 lambs are to be sold on French farms," sums up Christiane Lambert, president of the first French agricultural union FNSEA.
Farmers have to bear unforeseen costs to feed the animals that remain in the sheepfold, with no income in front.
"They gain weight, they gain fat, and lose value. We throw away the excess strawberries or asparagus, but our animals, what are we going to do with them?" worries Mrs. Baudouin.
"Behind the French lamb, there is economic activity, there are jobs, but above all there are 25,000 breeders who maintain landscapes", often in disadvantaged mountain regions. "If there is less avalanche in winter, it is often because the sheep have maintained the slopes," she said.
Beyond confinement, breeders suffer mainly from what they call "unfair competition" from New Zealand sheep, which fills the fridges after being sold below their production costs.
"Due to the exceptional concentration of all religious festivals this year, New Zealand sheep had been ordered beforehand, for fear of not having enough French production," said a source at Interbev, the interprofessional meat. France only supplies 43% of the country's consumption.
"These animals were slaughtered in January and transported for several weeks by boat in liquid nitrogen" to be able to sell them in the fresh department, while "ours are bred to be just ready for Easter and we cannot kill them", laments a breeder.
On social networks, breeders have published in recent days photos of lamb pieces labeled French, but whose provenance indicated (in very small) was actually "New Zealand". "A scandal, because the supermarkets pocket the margin in passing" denounces Ms. Baudouin.
Last week, the FNSEA carried out an action in a supermarket which had "Frenchized" the New Zealand lamb, also denounced Christiane Lambert.
This week, some local initiatives have emerged to give some air to breeders. The interprofession of meat in Rhône-Alpes, Normandy, New Aquitaine and Grand Est in particular has decided to donate lamb meat (New Zealand) to the kitchens of health establishments or to other communities.
The breeders finally also received a helping hand from the large distribution, which promotes French lamb meat, and financed themselves a radio communication campaign.
In the Atlantic Pyrenees, the breeders of three cooperatives were very successful with a gigantic "drive sheep" operation: a direct online sale of whole milk lambs at 91 euros per unit, to be collected in the form of boxes of pieces ready to freeze in 45 points of the department.
© 2020 AFP