The Salon de l'Agriculture opens its doors this Saturday in Paris. It will be an opportunity to draw up a first assessment of the so-called Egalim law which was supposed to rebalance relations between distributors and farmers.

The Salon de l'Agriculture opens its doors this Saturday in Paris. It will be an opportunity to draw up a first assessment of the so-called Egalim law which was supposed to rebalance relations between distributors and farmers. But what is it really? Are farmers better paid today?

If we stick to the general figures it is not obvious. According to an estimate made last January by the Agriculture Accounts Commission, the net profit of farms would have decreased by 10.6% last year. There is therefore nothing to be happy about but when we look in more detail, there is still the best thanks in particular to this Egalim law. It was passed sixteen months ago and was intended to restore purchasing power to farmers by fixing prices on the basis of their cost of production. Manufacturers also had to sign long-term contracts to secure these prices, and they did. Same thing for distributors, moreover for the first time Auchan Lidl or Intermarché will be present at the show.

So does that mean we pay more for milk or meat?

For the dairy sector, yes. It benefited from an increase in the price of the liter which climbed from 35 cents to 38 cents. But it is an average and that does not mean that all breeders benefit from it. On meats or on fruits and vegetables on the other hand, we do not yet see frankly positive effects on prices but it is also because these sectors have difficulty in providing indicators of production costs sufficiently reliable to calculate the prices of their products. What is certain at this point is that food prices as a whole have stopped falling. They even increased by 0.9%. This in itself is a positive indicator since these prices had fallen five years in a row.

Daniel Fortin replaces Nicolas Barré this Friday February 21, 2020.