The majority agricultural union pleads for the State to preserve the food production chain, “first need of the French”.
Milk, beets, tomatoes: there are “absolute urgency“That the government provide additional aid to French farmers and industrialists, hit hard by the energy crisis, demanded Thursday Christiane Lambert, president of the FNSEA, interviewed on BFM Business.
While the government presents its energy sobriety plan on Thursday, intended to prepare for a difficult winter without Russian gas and with many nuclear reactors shut down, the majority agricultural union pleads for the State to preserve the food production chain, “primary need of the French“. “The government must put in place measures to keep these companies at arm’s length during this energy crisis, otherwise it will effectively be closures and thousands of jobs locked up“, alerted Christiane Lambert. “We must dare to say that we are in a situation of war economy (…) that we are in a much more degraded situation than what we experienced during the Covid“, she added.
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“We have to find a way to support them”
In sectors such as beets or milk, whose transformation into sugar or powder is particularly energy-intensive, soaring energy costs are strangling manufacturers, who fear being unable to pay the bills. “Germany has put 200 billion euros on the table, it is very dependent on gas and therefore spends a lot, but so has France: we have to find a way to support“the food sector, pleaded Christiane Lambert. “Is it a cap on the price of gas to make energy, is it a cash support for very energy-intensive companies? In any case, there is absolute urgency“, she estimated.
“Tomato producers stop putting tomatoes in greenhouses, dairy producers who have to cool the milk (…) also say to themselves: how are we going to do it?“, warned Ms. Lambert, who recalls that the costs of agricultural production have soared from “26.7% over one year“. The boss of the FNSEA also called once again on the distributors, who have engaged in a standoff with the manufacturers within the framework of the commercial renegotiations – which in the long term make it possible to fix the prices in the supermarkets -, to accept new increases in the price. purchase price of food products.
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“You have to go to increases more regularly, otherwise who is toasting? The cash flow of industrialists, who are struggling to pay farmers“, she pointed out, pleading for the increases related to energy to be recorded now.