REPORTAGE
After the rooster Maurice, and the cows of Cantal, around the pigs of Aniche. In the North, a couple of farmers were sentenced to pay a fine of 58,700 euros for the olfactory and noise pollution of their pigs as well as for the delay in moving the animals. A judgment that farmers do not understand. Europe 1 went to meet them.
"We love our job, but here we have got in the way, it's hard," confides Nathalie, a farmer, with emotion in her empty pigsty. At the origin of the three years of struggle of the couple of breeders, a neighborhood dispute. At the end of 2016, their neighbor wants to revalue his land, a wasteland of 5,000 square meters. She decides to attack the couple in court for the noise and odor nuisances related to the pig farm.
Supporting neighboring farmers
"The only way was to move the pigs, except we were only left for three months," says Nathalie. The deadline is too short to file the building permit and carry out the work. The pigs ended up being moved to a neighboring commune, but the two farmers accumulated late penalties: 200 euros per day, or 58,700 euros in total.
For Michel Roger, member of the Agricultural Union of Douai, this situation is incomprehensible. "Today the profession says stop! We do not want more judgments of the 'high'," he says. Why should they leave because a neighbor has decided to change the destination of his land? "
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To support the breeders 'couple, a rally is organized by the FDSEA (National Federation of Farmers' Unions), Saturday, November 30 from 11 am. The farmers will converge in a tractor from Douai and the surrounding communes in front of the city court. A kitty was also set up to help the couple.