INTERVIEW
Coronavirus, summer drought leading to extremely early harvests ... 2020 is not an easy year for the French wine industry. Seeing it as a "mirror of the effects of climate change" on our lives, Julien Denormandie believes that the situation "requires us to act very quickly". Guest from Europe Evening - Weekend this Saturday, the Minister of Agriculture and Food therefore wants the wine industry, and French agriculture as a whole, to be "a fundamental element" of the economic recovery plan which is due on Thursday.
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An "asset for the health of all of us" ...
Pointing that episodes of heat wave follow "very violent storms, including hail", the minister says that the government will pay in the recovery plan "special attention to the protection of crops vis-à-vis climatic hazards ":" Very concretely, we will be able to finance anti-hail nets, but also to invest in agricultural resilience, that is to say in particular to develop plants which need less water. " The French agricultural system is an "asset for the health of all of us, and thousands of people work there," he adds.
>> TO LISTEN - Drought, early harvest ... what are the impacts for the wine sector?
... and for "French independence"
Julien Denormandie also sees agriculture as an asset for "French independence". "I cannot imagine France without food independence and we know today that we have certain issues on this point." From there to impose French products on the shelves? If the minister sidesteps the question, he specifies that he wishes to see the dynamics of containment continue, where products from short circuits had gained popularity.
A capital issue for the minister, since he is "at the center of discussions [he has] with stakeholders in the agrifood industry."