Anne-Cécile Suzanne is a farmer in mixed farming in Orne and a graduate of Sciences Po Paris.
A farmer commits suicide every two days in France.
The figure is shuddering and he is in reality not an experienced farmer who has not known, near or far, a colleague who has committed suicide.
It is unacceptable, unacceptable.
But what to do ?
The report presented by the Senate in March 2021 set out a series of recommendations, which have in part been taken up by the government around measures proudly announced. They are based on the early detection of agricultural suicide markers. The privileged partners are the agricultural social mutuality, the chambers of agriculture or any witness, who will have a toll-free number at their disposal. Thus detected, the farmer can be cured of his moral misery. Better still, he will even be entitled to respite assistance, a cut-off of his operation or to "trials" of returning to the farm, after a work stoppage in particular.
If we understand the visceral attachment of the farmer to his profession, we also understand, fundamentally, his suicide, because there is no difference between the success of the farm and the success of his own life.
Anne-Cecile Suzanne
All this will help farmers, it is certain and in this we must welcome the initiative.
But all the same, it's a safe bet that these measures will do too little to prevent suicide among farmers.
The reason is that farming is not just a job.
It's a way of life that we love and choose.
When we get up at four in the morning to give birth to a calf, when we go to bed at this same time to finish the harvest, we do it because it is our life which resides in the beauty of a birth, of a harvest and we like it that way.
Me, when things were going badly in my life, it was my cows who hung up on me, while I admired them licking their calves, lying in the meadow or in the straw, tasting a little purple clover ... When the difficulties accumulated, it was a walk in the fields that allowed me to recover. We live our job and we love our life. Where it starts to mess is when we can no longer exercise it without someone or something bothering us. Bother us because there is no more money in the bank account, because a cow has lost one of its identification tags and it will cost us a thousand euros, or because a passing visitor decided that it was time to open the doors to the farm and that if we said no 'they don'tdon't have to complain about these farmers, that they denigrate their profession! ”.
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If we understand the visceral attachment of the farmer to his profession, we also understand, fundamentally, his suicide, because there is no difference between the success of the farm and the success of his own life.
We also understand that he will be able to have a multitude of treatments and people at his bedside, he will not be happy, he will not be able to project himself into his life, until we have grasped our collective responsibility to put an end to with three large daggerboards.
There is only one real way to resolve the lack of income: getting agriculture out of European competition rules.
Anne-Cecile Suzanne
The first is the lack of income. Here there will be no miracles. The Egalim law can try to strengthen the role of farmers as suppliers of raw materials, it will not succeed because even organized farmers will never be as strong as industrial groups and purchasing centers of mass distribution. To resolve this first drift, there is only one real path: getting agriculture out of the European competition rules. The Court of Justice of the European Union has extended its hand in this direction to France with its case law of the Cartel des Endives (2017), specifying that the proper functioning of the common market is a priority in law over European competition rules. Today, France simply needs to take this issue in hand. One, it is necessary thatit takes note that the proper functioning of the market depends on the good remuneration of farmers. Two, it must act accordingly, for example by setting up an independent administrative authority to regulate the market, to guarantee the remuneration of farmers, even if the latter is contrary to European competition rules.
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The second drift is administrative uncertainty.
Admittedly, European inconsistency is worrying, between an increasingly less common agricultural policy and a “green” strategy (
Farm to Fork
) completely disconnected from realities. As a farmer, you don't really know which God to turn to. But the responsibility is also French! The national agricultural strategic plan, which is starting to emerge from the woods, is incredibly complex. The administrative procedures to welcome the public on his farm, to obtain the authorization to exploit land or to build his house on his place of exploitation deserve hours of work ... as if the farmer had only that to to do ! It is discouraging in advance to start a project and when you can no longer project yourself without bringing on yourself administrative demons or hordes of very expensive paid advisers ... Indeed, we despair a little.
The third responsibility is yours, dear reader.
The farmers have understood that without you, they will not be able to attract political goodwill, that without you, who votes three times a day, they will not be able to defend this beautiful agriculture to which they devote their lives.
But do not forget, when you go to meet him, when you buy your bread, your vegetables, your meat in the fresh section, that it is his life that he gives to you and that this life and sometimes his intimacy, it is respect.
