Bayer, the seed giant
It is in Peyrehorade that the group produces seeds sold to farmers.
"In a seed bag, there is a promise made to the farmer: from your bag of 50,000 grains that you are going to sow, you will have 50,000 plants, which will give you 50,000 ears of corn, so that will guarantee you your income ", explains Gwenola de Fontenay, head of seed quality control at Bayer.
The company produces hybrid seeds, called "F1", the result of crossing two lines.
All seeds are listed in a European catalog which records more than 43,000 vegetable and agricultural species, and where farmers come to pick each year.
The seed catalog system was implemented in the second part of the twentieth century in Europe, when the continent wanted to modernize its agriculture, to make it more productive, more mechanized, but at the same time more uniform and standardized.
“If there was no catalog, continues Gwenola de Fontenay, there would be no seed company. Nobody would put seeds on the market, if the following year, everyone could use them. . You can't make seven years of effort if behind you don't have a guarantee that it's going to be protected. "
Kokopelli, the outlaws
"This catalog should be burned!", Reacts Ananda Guillet, president of the Kokopelli association, which has been marketing seeds out of the catalog for 20 years and illegally.
That's the whole point: F1 seeds are degenerative.
After the first harvest, we are not sure of their evolution, of their yield.
Farmers buy these seeds every year to ensure abundant and stable harvests.
The seeds produced by Kokopelli can be saved by farmers and replanted from year to year.
“F1 is totally scandalous!” Protests Ananda, a felt cap screwed on his head, “because it locks the agricultural system, it forces farmers to go back to the cash drawer every year. 'have no choice as to which seeds they buy.
Consequently, the farmers "will buy back seeds which will need the whole technological package and all the phytosanitary products sold by the industrialists and which make the real fortune of (the latter)", continues Ananda.
"Bayer is first and foremost a seller of chemicals. The seed is only the market maker."
F1 varieties certainly have a higher yield.
But other characteristics such as taste and their nutritional value are the subject of much debate.
The debate continues
Séverine Monzies and Tiffen Tolnay are market gardeners in Ariège, in the south-west of France.
Established in organic farming, they produce a wide range of fruits and vegetables: watermelons, melons, tomatoes and even courgettes.
The couple are well aware of the problem.
For them, all types of seeds are necessary.
They favor seeds known as "population varieties", which are reproducible, but sometimes need F1 when a plot is affected by a virus.
Their credo: agricultural biodiversity and the autonomy of farmers.
They therefore avoid hybrid seeds as much as possible, while remaining realistic.
“We do a little hybrid anyway because yes it actually produces a lot a lot more,” says Tiffen, “but if we gave all the power to a few houses that make F1 hybrids and everything else just disappeared (.. .), that would mean that we would no longer be sovereign at all, we would no longer have any seeds of our own. "
The summary of the week
France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application
google-play-badge_FR