Emmanuelle Ducros 8:54 a.m., February 27, 2024

Every morning after the 8:30 a.m. news, Emmanuelle Ducros reveals to listeners her “Journey into absurdity”, from Monday to Thursday.

This Tuesday morning, the setbacks of an agricultural association to have its virtuous practices for the environment certified by the administration.

She recounts her nightmare in an open letter.

The association is called Apad, it is 20 years old and brings together 215 farms.

Its credo is soil conservation agriculture.

A super virtuous agronomic practice.

We abandon plowing, we let the earthworms do the work, we protect the soil with crops that capture nitrogen and carbon, we rotate the crops that nourish the land.

It works well ?

Alright.

Healthy soils, much less fertilizer.

And above all: a lot of carbon captured: almost a ton per hectare each year.

Carbon that remains there, because we don't plow.

To reduce agriculture's greenhouse gas bill, there's nothing better.

In 2020, the association wanted to benefit from the low carbon label from the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

A climate certification which rewards the reduction of CO2 emissions.

This has an interest for the community and for farmers: their production is better valued by buyers, without it costing the State a cent.

And it didn't go as planned.

It is the least we can say.

In an open letter published for the Salon, Apad, who wanted to do everything according to the rules, recounts the dive into the madhouse that she experienced.

“Information meetings on the method, presentation conferences, meetings with the ministry to determine the data to be collected, the documents to provide.

Emails, questions, sometimes responses from administrative authorities, not always.

Notifications, a change of computer system, re-notification.

Two years of work and on June 26, good news: the file is validated, it will receive the label within 15 days!

The end of an obstacle course?

Victory ?

The joy lasts two months.

In August, the validation was withdrawn without explanation.

The administration is asking Apad for endless documents.

“meanders of bad faith, administrative rigidity, arbitrary decisions which become rules of the game,” explains a manager.

We end up telling the association that its project can be certified provided it starts at the beginning.

Redo everything.

All.

Without any reason.

And the Apad started again?

Yes.

But with little hope, because the rules have changed.

According to the administration, the label is now intended not to reward those who already store carbon but those who want to do so.

At Apad, we are ironic: we have to release the carbon we have stored and say that we are going to start again, we will have the label.

What would we say about a schoolmaster who reserved good points for more mediocre students who have a lot to do and who humiliated his best students to punish them for not being able to improve as much?

That he is perverted?

Yes.

Apad is a victim of administrative perversity.