While farmers and distributors negotiate their annual trade agreements, some producers denounce the lack of effectiveness of the Egalim law, passed in 2018. They ask for more sanctions for manufacturers who do not respect the rules, but also more transparency for know the reasons for the increase in the prices of their products.
Farmers are entering the home stretch of annual trade negotiations with mass distribution and food manufacturers.
A crucial moment because the prices set during these negotiations will determine their future salary.
It is to ensure them a fair remuneration, that the Egalim law was passed two years ago in the National Assembly.
For Émilie Jannin, breeder of Charolais in Côte d'Or, it is a good text but there remains a major problem: it does not provide for sanctions.
"There are no fines planned"
To explain her point, she takes the example of the highway code: "There is a highway code that defines things that we must do and not do. When we do the things that 'we must not do, we have reports and we have to pay fines. Concretely, for distributors, it's the same. We wrote intentions, that is to say a code of good ethics in the Egalim law Except that there are no minutes or fines provided if they do not comply with the code written in the law ", develops the breeder at the microphone of Europe1.
>> READ ALSO
- Agriculture and mass distribution: Serge Papin "suggests leaving annual negotiations"
A poorly respected law and soaring prices
The Egalim law is therefore little respected and prices soar.
"My liter of milk leaves my farm for around 50 cents. In supermarkets, it can be found at more than two euros. Who uses between the two? I don't know", asks her side Charlotte Kerglonou, producer of organic milk in Ille-et-Vilaine.
The price is multiplied by more than four between the farm and the supermarket, far from the fair distribution of wealth that Julien Denormandie, the Minister of Agriculture, promises for this year.
>> READ ALSO
- Farmers' standard of living: has the Egalim law had a beneficial effect?
On Saturday on Europe 1, the minister also pointed out the role of consumers.
He believes that the battle to revalue the remuneration of farmers is not only waged with manufacturers and mass distribution, but also with consumers.
"That each of us, in his act of consumption, which is a citizen act, consider the quality of French agricultural products and agree to pay for them at their fair value", he pleaded.