The agricultural world needs “more time” to decarbonize than the rest of the economy, the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu conceded on Friday, after a meeting at the Agricultural Show with young farmers who were very critical of environmental standards.
“It is no coincidence that in ecological planning, we demand, we anticipate, a much stronger decarbonization of industry than of agriculture,” declared Christophe Béchu to AFP, at the end of a lively dialogue at the stand of the Young Farmers, a union allied with the FNSEA, where the Minister of Ecology had tried to reassure these professionals.
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“This is because to pivot 390,000 very small structures, it takes more time than to move the 50 most emitting industries in France,” he added.
“I assume that when you work on living things, with investment capacities that are limited and with few human resources, it takes more time than if you discuss with Alstom and steel giants.
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18% of France's greenhouse gases in 2021
Agriculture represented 18% of France's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2021, ranking 2nd among the highest emitting sectors after transport.
“What matters in the end is the coherence of the system, it is that we are both at the right pace in terms of reducing emissions and that we are in a transition underway, on which there is no there is no going back,” defended the minister.
Also read: Agriculture and ecological transition: “Support for colossal change”
“But doing it without (farmers), if it is to continue to see a decline in agricultural production in our country, is nonsense,” he concluded.
“It’s not ecology against agriculture”
The minister had just spent around twenty minutes listening to the grievances of operators.
They described to him the consequences of certain standards deemed excessive or inconsistent, in particular on the cleaning of waterways, hedges or brush clearing.
“It is not ecology against agriculture,” the minister responded to farmers, conceding that certain standards have gone “beyond common sense” and are no longer adapted to climate change.
“Climate disruption tells us we are going to have less water in the summer, more water in the winter (…) so ensure that part of the water that falls, we retain it inside the land to prevent it from going more quickly into the sea, it is not an ideological thing, it is common sense", explained the minister to the farmers, whose requests for additional water storage for irrigation have become a subject of controversy.