The bill "reforming climate risk management tools in agriculture" was widely adopted at first reading in the early evening at the Palais Bourbon, with 94 votes in favor, 3 against and 5 abstentions.

The text must now go to the Senate, with the government aiming for final adoption under the current legislature, for implementation on January 1, 2023.

This reform wants to "create the safety belt of farmers in the face of climatic accidents" - hail, frost, drought ... - whose "frequency and intensity are increasing", pleaded the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie.

President Emmanuel Macron outlined the reform in front of young farmers in September, wishing "to have the fastest possible response when you are affected by an agricultural calamity".

Compensation for crop losses is currently based on the parallel, or even competing, operation of two systems.

The first, co-financed by farmers and the State, excludes certain areas of agriculture (viticulture and field crops) and its deadlines are considered too slow.

The second is the private insurance system but subsidized at 65% by the State, in deficit and still little subscribed by farmers.

A regime "out of breath, struggling to fulfill its functions", recognized MP Sylvia Pinel (Liberties and Territories).

The architecture of the bill has three levels.

It provides that farmers bear the smallest losses out of their own money (up to 20%).

Then come insurance up to a threshold to be defined, and finally the State for claims "of exceptional magnitude".

To encourage farmers to take out insurance, the text provides that even in the event of heavy losses, the uninsured will be much less well compensated.

The fact that the risk assumed by the insurance is capped at a certain level where the State will take over makes it possible to limit the risk for the insurer and therefore the amount of the premiums, it is pointed out at the Ministry of 'Agriculture.

The reform is supported by the majority agricultural union FNSEA.

The Rural Coordination and Confédération Paysanne unions consider it too favorable to insurers.

On the left, the Communist Jean-Paul Dufrègne pleaded for "a public insurance scheme" for farmers, and criticized the large part given to private insurers in the bill, which "insures the insurers".

The rapporteur Frédéric Descrozaille (LREM) replied that on the contrary, "insurers are slowing down" on this reform.

Jean-Hugues Ratenon (LFI) affirmed that the new system "only reinforces the inequalities between insured and uninsured farmers".

On the right, Julien Dive (LR), approved "the main principles" of the reform, while deploring that many elements are left to decrees.

© 2022 AFP