Farmers are keeping up the pressure. If numerous road blockages were lifted during the weekend after initial measures announced by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, agricultural unions continued to make their demands heard on Monday January 29 by blocking highways in the Paris region for the first time. .
Because according to the unions – FNSEA, Young Farmers (JA) and Rural Coordination in the lead – certain central demands have not been heard. Among them, removing the non-treatment zones with phytosanitary products, which set safety distances near homes for the spreading of certain pesticides, but also that of removing the obligation to put part of the agricultural land fallow.
Under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), farmers must respect certain agro-environmental conditions to be able to benefit from European aid. However, the new version of the text, which covers the period 2023-2027, requires 4% of arable land to continually be in a “non-productive zone”. In other words, to stop exploiting part of the plots.
“We demand the immediate suspension of the 4% fallow, from this year”, insisted Arnaud Rousseau, the president of the FNSEA, on Wednesday January 24 on France 2. “More than 800 million people threatened by global food insecurity and they want to impose 4% of unproductive agricultural land on us!”, he was indignant.
Preserve biodiversity
“For Brussels, the ambition of this measure is above all to protect biodiversity by leaving it a small protected place on farms,” explains Aurélie Catallo, director of the “Agricultural and Food Policies” program at the Institute for Sustainable Development and of international relations (Iddri).
Intensive agriculture is in fact considered the main cause of the erosion of biodiversity, even though the latter is ultimately essential to maintaining agricultural activities.
The agricultural sector has transformed over the last fifty years, with increasingly larger farms – going from 21 hectares in 1970 to 69 hectares in 2020 on average, according to censuses –, increased use of pesticides and less and less of polycultures.
At the same time, biodiversity has collapsed and ecosystems have been degraded in agricultural environments. Bird populations have decreased by 43%, more than 40% of surface water is affected by pollution and soils are increasingly deteriorated, notes a parliamentary report on the dynamics of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes published on January 24.
However, “leaving land undisturbed is presented by scientists as an effective way of providing refuge for biodiversity”, reiterates Aurélie Catallo. “And to this are added agronomic benefits: leaving land fallow allows the soil to regenerate and regain fertility.”
Disparities according to farms
Historically, the technique was used extensively, before being abandoned with the appearance of weedkillers and chemical fertilizers. It then resurfaced gradually in the 1990s, without any notion of obligation.
Fallow land was thus already mentioned in the old text of the CAP. But in 2023, Brussels wanted to be more ambitious, "by making the establishment of these biodiversity refuges conditional on aid and financing", continues the CAP specialist.
However, the EU offers two options to farmers to respect this 4% non-productive area rule. “This category includes fallow land but also all agroecological infrastructure, such as hedges, ponds, trees, low walls,” notes Aurélie Catallo. “A farmer can therefore respond to Brussels’ demand without setting a single plot fallow,” she insists.
Second option: the operator can decide to have only 3% of his land in a “non-productive zone”. But in this case, he will also have to reserve 4% of his land for other environmentally friendly areas, such as leguminous crops, which fix nitrogen.
"In reality, this measure will have a very different impact depending on the farms. Livestock farms, for example, with meadows and hedges, will often immediately be in compliance with the regulations. On the other hand, large cereal farms, although often with fields as far as the eye can see, will be forced to adapt and in the short term, fallowing may be the only solution."
“It’s a false solution”
Until now, however, operators had been able to leave this problem aside. In 2023, faced with the war in Ukraine and fears for global food security that the conflict is generating, Brussels decided to grant an exemption to farmers to allow them to produce more. However, this measure expired at the end of 2023 and, despite the request of certain member states including France, the EU refuses any extension.
Unsurprisingly, in a more general context of frustration and anger among farmers, who deplore overly restrictive European standards, the issue has become one of their main demands.
“Putting fallow means less income and more costs in an already difficult context,” insists Damien Brunelle, president of France Grandes Cultures, which represents large cereal farms. "I, for example, have a farm of around one hundred hectares. So they want to prevent me from farming four. Not only does this mean that I lose the income from these four hectares, but, what's more, I still have to pay the costs of managing these lands,” he laments.
"Not to mention that I am not sure of the ecological benefits. To fallow land, I will have to plant grass, with a tractor that uses diesel and I would have to use this same tractor to restore the plot to normal condition. "exploitation", he pleads.
As for using agroecology techniques? “Here again, these are costs without profit,” exclaims this operator from the north of France, member of the Rural Coordination union. “A hedge only makes sense around meadows or villages. Around large cereal fields, it has no interest, on the contrary: there are much less yields around these plantations.”
Also read: Downgrading, debt, European standards… the reasons for the anger of French farmers
The only viable option, according to him, is the possibility of devoting this land to planting legumes. “As long as we can treat them properly,” he adds. A dead end, again, Brussels refusing the use of pesticides in these areas.
Beyond the claim, Damien Brunelle's greatest frustration seems political. “The Minister of Agriculture supports us. Several EU states are on the same line, but Brussels does not listen to us,” he laments. And if on January 26, Gabriel Attal promised that Emmanuel Macron would request a derogation of an additional year during the next European Council, "in the end, it will still be Brussels which will decide", concludes Damien Brunelle.
“Ensure a dignified income for all farmers”
“The only way to get out of these tensions between safeguarding biodiversity and agriculture is to ensure a dignified income for all farmers,” argues Manon Meunier, LFI MP and co-rapporteur of the parliamentary mission on the dynamics of biodiversity. in agricultural landscapes.
“All the farmers we interviewed are aware that they are also victims of the erosion of biodiversity and all agree to initiate a real ecological transition, but on condition that they are truly supported by ambitious public policies” , she insists. However, for the moment, we can read in the conclusions of its investigation, support for farmers is “discontinuous, poorly targeted and very insufficient to effectively encourage farmers to change practices”.
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