Barthélémy Philippe // Photo credit: Serge Tenani / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 6:49 a.m., February 27, 2024
Visiting the Salon de l'Agriculture, Bruno Le Maire provided after-sales service for the measure announced by Emmanuel Macron: the establishment of floor prices for each agricultural product defined sector by sector.
Well received by the vast majority of farmers, these floor prices nevertheless threaten the competitiveness of French agriculture for export.
Despite the crisis, France remains a major agricultural power.
For 20 years, the trade balance has almost always been in surplus.
Establishing floor prices would mean more expensive purchasing prices and therefore a loss of competitiveness for French farmers.
“The market shares that we lose, Russia will be happy to recover”
Jérôme, a cereal grower in Eure present at the show, understood this well: "By setting a floor price which goes back to a minimum, we are going to prohibit ourselves from exports. And the exports that we lose, we will not find them again not, that’s for sure,” he says.
“Market shares that we are losing and that Russia will be happy to recover.”
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At the Agricultural Show, dairy producers call on Europe and demand fair remuneration
Visiting Porte de Versailles, Bruno Le Maire tried to draw a ridge path that would ensure competitiveness and better remuneration for farmers: “Every French farm must be able to be competitive. And therefore there is a floor price below which you cannot sell because it is not sufficiently remunerative, so there is absolutely no incompatibility between the floor price and the competitiveness of French farms. The two go together."
Difficult to imagine, especially since the Egalim 2 law already planned to protect farmers' income by prohibiting the price of raw materials.