“We cannot be the only ones to finance the agroecological transition!
» This is the cry from the heart launched on Monday February 19 by Stéphanie Maertens, to local elected officials and managers who came to meet organic farmers at the Mésangère farm, in Sainte-Marie d'Attez, in the south of Eure.
Market gardener and co-president of Bio en Normandie, which brings together 400 organic farmers among the approximately 3,000 identified in Normandy, the spokesperson denounced “a lack of public will” and deplored a “poor structuring of the sectors”.
A “Franco-French” situation which, according to her, explains the crisis that organic farming has been going through since post-Covid when, in Germany, Austria or Italy, consumption “started to rise again from the second half of 2022”.
The National Federation of Organic Agriculture (FNAB) called on farmers to gather on Wednesday February 7 in front of the Palais-Bourbon.
Deploring "an abandonment" of organic in the announcements of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in response to the agricultural demonstrations of January, the FNAB is demanding aid of 271 million euros to compensate for losses in the organic sector, estimated at 550 million euros. euros over two years, compared to the 50 million announced at the end of January by the government.
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The sector also calls for “maintaining environmental standards, but with controls intended more to support than to sanction”, recalls the co-president of Bio en Normandie, Stéphanie Maertens.
Finally, to better promote the practices of organic producers in terms of environmental preservation, the FNAB demands remuneration for the environmental and health services provided to the tune of 145 euros per hectare per year.
“Today, I receive 700 euros per year, that represents a full tank of my harvester,” recalls Romain Wittrisch, cereal farmer of the 115 hectares of the Mésangères farm, whose fields are bordered by newly planted hedges.
Born in the Paris region, he settled in 2019 on the Mésangère farm, taking over the cereal farm that Yves Vanhoecke had converted to organic farming more than 20 years ago.
“We worked for 8 years to prepare for this transmission, at a time, in 2015-2016, when there was good momentum around organic,” says Romain.
Before observing: “I am part of this generation which will make it possible to renew farms but I have around me today many producers, although convinced by organic, who are thinking of returning to conventional agriculture”.
He also kept a full-time job, in addition to his activity on the farm, due to lack of sufficient remuneration.
The cause is a drop of almost 40% in organic prices, bringing the ton of cereal to a level close to the conventional price, but with a yield two to three times lower in organic farming.
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For him, as for many organic producers, it is on the market side that things get stuck.
Despite the implementation of EGalim, which imposes on collective catering a minimum of 20% organic among the 50% sustainable and quality products, the first declarations received on ma-cantine.agriculture.gouv.fr show that the canteens are well below expected requirements, with “17% of canteens respecting EGalim and 3% organic” only in the Eure department.
“We will have more precise figures by March 31,” promises the prefect of Eure Simon Babre, who recognizes that “enormous educational work” remains to be carried out.
On the producers' side, the problem of outlets is not linked to the price of organic products but rather to uses.
“80% of organic meals go in the trash due to a lack of approach strategy,” laments the mayor of Sainte-Marie-d’Attez, Patrick Brault.
In question, the culinary education of children, but also of cooks who find themselves overnight having to deal with products that they are not necessarily used to.
“There must be no violence, the cooks are up for it,” assures Patrick Brault.
“We rush people because we put them in difficulty even though they don’t have the tools” to work with organic products.
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A few kilometers away, Benoît Dorchies raises pigs and poultry at the Lyres organic farm.
He has been dealing with collective catering for several years, often bypassing calls for tenders, which are sometimes considered impossible to win when based on poor criteria.
“It's difficult to get into collective catering, but once you're there, if you don't change people, it works,” he says.
He chose to operate with meat packages.
“When the canteen orders chipos from me, I offer the rest of my animal to my customers for direct sale,” he explains.
A process “that takes time”, recognizes the breeder whose parents are approaching retirement.
Due to a lack of vegetable factories, intermediate processing industries, for example, to produce pasta from locally grown cereals, or the space needed to process cereals or store meat in kitchens, canteens find themselves too limited.
“And when we have 100% organic days, it’s a mistake, because we can’t get products from here,” recognizes Stéphanie Maertens.
“Providing 20% organic food in canteens cannot be done by snapping your fingers,” emphasizes Frédéric Goy, director of the Biocer cooperative.
In financial difficulties, this cereal cooperative was almost absorbed by a large agri-food group before deciding, at the last minute, to remain independent.
But the accounts are not there and, to meet the demand for school catering, “Biocer must invest”, convinced that there is a way out of the crisis for organic farming.
“If, on our schoolchildren’s plates, we could find products that come from a few kilometers away, we would achieve our goals.”