Accompanied by her little Calf King of the meadows, the Charolais cow Idéale, muse in the immaculate dress of the Salon de l'Agriculture, arrived this Friday at Porte de Versailles in Paris. She comes in particular to defend the reputation of Charolais breeding and the farmers who support it, confronted like their colleagues from all regions with a perilous economic situation.
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Leaving at 5 am from the small mountains of Cours-la-Ville (Rhône), Idéale, a ton, made its appearance a little before noon this Friday, under the lenses of multiple cameras and cameras came to immortalize it from all angles. Visibly a little impressed, trying to sow the pack of journalists, she entered the race in the Parc des Expositions, where the agricultural fair opens on Saturday, before taking her place with her calf in their enclosure .
She is a superb representative of her Charolais breed. " It is a suckling breed, which subsequently aims to produce quality meat " noted in January its breeders Jean-Marie and Laurent Goujat in a video with 20Minutes. Ideal, who is six years old, has “ a short head, a wide muffle, white horns directed towards the eyes. She has a straight, very muscular back, plump thighs and good balance [posture] ”. As for Roi des Prés, he was born a month ago and will continue to be breastfed by his mother for seven to eight months.
" Zero " income after expenses have been deducted
Other animals took their marks on Friday at the same time as Idéale: among them, a few dozen meters from the star cow, two beautiful sheep of the Blue Maine breed, under the eyes of their breeder, Geoffrey Veber, 32 years old , straight from the region of Verdun (Meuse). As an echo to Jean-Marie Goujat's speech, he explained that his brothers, like him, if they support the exploitation that their mother keeps, all have outside work to guarantee a decent income. " We keep that for the family patrimony and out of passion, " he explains, making the zero sign with his thumb and forefinger when asked about the income that he has left after the expenses have been deducted.
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The breeders are trying as best they can to preserve their turnover, jeopardized in particular by the price war waged by retail chains, and that the Food law, which came into force in early 2019, has not managed to pacify. “ We want to transmit this profession to future generations. For that, our production must be remunerated at a fair price , "he declared before a group of journalists at the very moment when the Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume came on the scene to greet" the mascot of the show ".
Among the levers to guarantee this income: the budget of the common agricultural policy (CAP), in negotiations in Brussels, for which President Macron " is fighting tooth and nail ", assured the Minister. " He left for Brussels with one objective, the maintenance of the CAP budget ," assured Didier Guillaume, " because we know very well that if the CAP budget were to decrease beyond the departure of the British, (...) that would be a problem. It would be a problem for the resilience of our agriculture, it would be a problem for direct aid to farmers, to enable them to live, and it would be a real problem for the installation of young people, a real problem for the agro-ecological transition ".
" This is a big issue, which will condition the evolution of our prices, " reacted Jean-Marie Goujat, who also calls on consumers: " when we choose to buy this or that piece of meat, such and such price, this or that origin, we also condition the breeding and agriculture that we want in our territories ”. A speech he will be keen to share with the 650,000 visitors expected at the show this year.
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