- The coronavirus epidemic is not without asking several questions about the proper functioning of our food chain. Especially on transport, an essential link in our globalized systems.
- A pioneer of the locavore movement in France, the Occitan Stéphane Linou hopes that this health crisis will at least have the effect of an "educational slap", prompting us to finally look into the security of our food supplies.
- The idea is not so much to aim for 100% food autonomy, say sociologist Yuna Chiffouleau and geographer Pierre Janin. But at least be aware of the risks of our food systems and minimize them as much as possible.
“Delegating our food is crazy. We must regain control. There is a passage from Emmanuel Macron's March 12 televised address that did not escape Stéphane Linou. "I was asked if I was the one who had written this part of the speech," smiled this former Aude general councilor, now a local development advisor.
It is that he has been hammering this message for many years now. "In 2008, already, I made the bet to feed myself with local products from a radius of 150 km around Castelnaudary (Aude), to show the weaknesses of our food supplies", says Stéphane Linou, suddenly presented as a pioneer of the locavore movement in France. Last June, he also published Food Resilience and National Security [VACEdition] , an investigation on which Haute-Garonne Senator Françoise Laborde will rely to table a motion for a resolution in the Senate, last December.
The text aimed to alert the executive to the need to take back control of our food security. It will be rejected with a few votes. The result would undoubtedly be quite different today, estimates Stéphane Linou, who sees in the spread of the coronavirus "one of those educational slaps which we sometimes need to become aware of things".
Transport, Achilles heel of a globalized system
Because the epidemic is not without raising some concerns about our food supply system. Thursday evening, while removing the risk of shortages on the shelves, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, still identified tensions on two specific points: "employees in mass distribution and transporters", fear being that of a strong absenteeism in these two sectors. Stéphane Linou, like Pierre Janin, geographer of the Research and Development Institute (IRD), insist on the second, that of logistics, "THE point of vulnerability in our current food system".
This system ? "That of an open, globalized and globalized market to which France, like many other countries, has gradually turned," describes Pierre Janin. Gradually, over the course of agricultural reforms and economic developments, the principle was established that it was not necessarily necessary to produce close to home to have access, at lower cost, to food products. "
Hence the importance of logistics. "It is all the greater since this international traffic operates on a just-in-time basis - storing costs at high cost - and orchestrates flows of complex and not very transparent goods," adds Yuna Chiffoleau, sociologist at Inrae (National Research Institute for Agriculture , food and the environment), where she works in particular on short circuits. Certain foodstuffs can also be produced in France, exported abroad to be processed, then re-imported into the country in order to be consumed there. "
"Realize that the risks exist"
In this context, it is difficult to determine food self-sufficiency in France. “Nationwide, we produce more calories than we consume, begins Stéphane Linou. But, this figure is misleading. Our diet is already much more varied than our food production. ” "More than half of our consumption of fruits and vegetables is imported," lamented, for example, Daniel Sauvaitre, secretary general of the French Interprofession of fruits and vegetables (Interfel) in March 2019, at the microphone of Europe 1.
Then, food self-sufficiency is assessed not on the scale of a country, but of its territories, recalls Stéphane Linou. "However, the situations are very contrasted from one territory to another," he says. The degree of food autonomy of the first 100 French urban areas is only 2% *, for example. In other words, 98% of the content of the food consumed there is imported.
An uncomfortable situation? A health crisis like the one we are experiencing with the coronavirus shows that it can be. "But a social conflict, a natural disaster, a spike in oil prices can just as easily weaken our food supplies", lists Yuna Chiffoleau. “For a long time, we probably rested too much on the idea that we are going towards a secure future, adds Pierre Janin. We are discovering today - and a little more with the Covid-19 - that these systemic risks weighing on food security are inherent in life in society. And that you have to manage them. "
"Do not aim for 100% autonomy"
States have already started this reflection. The geographer cites several countries in West Africa after the economic crisis of 2008, and the difficulties encountered on rice imports from Asia. "They have revived a local rice crop, a commodity crucial to their food security," he explains. "This Covid-19 health crisis could push, in France, this same resumption of control of our supplies," hopes Stéphane Linou.
The challenge is not to aim for 100% food autonomy, "impossible anyway", sweep both Yuno Chiffoleau and Pierre Janin. "It is much more important to become aware of our dependencies in our supplies and to transform them into interdependencies," slips the sociologist. This requires relocating certain strategic productions, when possible. It is also a question of forming partnerships between French and / or European territories around supply contracts, which would not be based solely on market logic. "
This is the whole concept of food resilience - the ability to withstand shocks and disturbances - that Stéphane Linou preaches. Since 2014 and the law of the future for agriculture and food, a tool can help territories move towards this goal. "It's the Territorial Food Project (PAT)," explains the local development adviser. But few communities have seized it, and those that have done so have been more concerned with boosting local employment than ensuring food security. "
A working group as soon as the epidemic is over?
L'Occitan would like to make the development of these PAT compulsory for each of the eleven French hydrographic basins (Seine-Normandie, Loire-Bretagne, Adour-Garonne…). "This document should even be the keystone of planning, then, of the territories," he adds.
This is one of the measures that Stéphane Linou would like to put on the table as soon as the coronavirus epidemic behind us. Still with Senator Françoise Laborde, he intends to ask the government to quickly launch a working group on the subject. Stéphane Linou has a battery of proposals in mind. “That, for example, of recognizing national agricultural food production as a sector of activity of vital importance, in the future law of military programming. That, also, of better protecting the nourishing lands of the artificialization of the grounds. Another is to raise awareness and prepare people for the risks of food shortages. Again, the coronavirus epidemic and the recent supermarket rushes have shown that we are not yet ready.
* Figure from a 2017 study by Utopies.
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The coronavirus epidemic as a case study on the resilience of our food systems ... The economist Gilles Maréchal (director of the firm Terre Alim), and the sociologist Catherine Darrot, both from the CNRS "Spaces and Society" laboratory, come in any case to launch an online questionnaire intended to feed future studies. "This survey is to be seen as a great feedback on the way we eat during the time of the coronavirus and how we organize the food supply", specifies Gilles Maréchal, who wants to cast a wide net. "We are looking to see how people get their supplies despite the containment measures and also to see what place food takes when we are blocked at home," he continues. We are also looking for feedback from professionals (farmers, logisticians) and local communities on the initiatives put in place to ensure supplies. "
Gilles Maréchal and Catherine Darrot have already collected a hundred responses. They intend to make a first “hot” synthesis from next week, “to show what it is possible to do in these times of epidemic”, specifies Gilles Maréchal. Then will come the time for a scientific analysis of this collected material, "with the optics, this time, of identifying avenues of reflection to better prepare for future crises," continues Gilles Maréchal. Climate for example. "
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