European CAP bonuses: Aveyron is French champion of aid recipients

L’élevage est encore largement majoritaire dans l’Aveyron avec 78 % des exploitations. Centre Presse – JOSE A. TORRES

The department received the most European funds between the months of October 2021 and October 2022.

Aid paid to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) represents around a third of the European Union budget. Between 2021 and 2027, this will represent a total of 386 billion euros, with France receiving around 9 billion per year. In 2022, some 7 million European beneficiaries will have directly received the various aid from the Pac.

The educational information site of the European Union "All of Europe", has compiled the latest available data on aid granted in France, between October 2021 and October 2022, to establish a ranking of the French departments which have received the most (or the least) this aid. And with more than 286 million euros (precisely 286,692,404 euros) received, Aveyron climbs to the highest step, far, very far ahead of Saône-et-Loire (195.08 M€) and Cantal (193.93 M€).

Disparities

How is it that Aveyron was able to benefit so much from aid from the Pac ? Let us remember that these 287 M€ represent more than a thousand euros for each Aveyron resident, and that the average aid received by each beneficiary in the department is 40,339 euros. A tidy sum which nevertheless hides disparities.

First of all, one of the reasons to explain the importance of this aid in Aveyron is that it is also the French department which has the most beneficiaries of the CAP, behind the Pyrenees -Atlantics. Then, if direct aid from the CAP (more than 75% of the total) favors "large farms and those whose activities are the most profitable" according to the Court of Auditors, or those which have a large herd (which is not necessarily the case in Aveyron, with only 6% of large farms), "the sector which receives the most aid from the CAP is the beef and beef sector",recalls the director of Agriculture France at the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), Aurélie Catallo. Who adds that "it’this is also the sector which has the lowest income".

Beef sector, mountain area…

However, if agricultural production has diversified a little over the last decade, 78% of farms in Aveyron are specialized in livestock breeding, mainly cattle (47% of farms) and sheep (21% ), according to the Regional Directorate of Food, Agriculture and Forests (Draaf) of Occitanie. Another factor explaining the importance of CAP aid in Aveyron is the compensatory allowance for natural and specific handicaps (ICHN) which is paid to farmers located in areas that are difficult to farm, particularly in the mountains. And here too, Aveyron is classified as a mountain zone for more than 94% of its territory. Growing cereals, organic farming or maintaining meadows also allows you to collect some bonuses from the Pac.

Not only beneficiary farmers

Our colleagues from La Montagne specify, however, that it is not only farmers who receive aid from the CAP. In 2019, for example, 55% of beneficiaries were individuals, individual businesses and family farms, 27% SARLs, 3% local authorities, and other legal entities, such as associations promoting products or agricultural labels.

In Aveyron, during this 2021-2022 period, associations but also the agricultural high schools of Saint-Affrique and La Roque also benefited, when it was not certain businesses such as the Serin Frères butcher's shop in Onet-le-Château , which received one of the most significant aid in the department, more than 448,000 €.

European aid " exceptional" for the castonetoise SARL which is not surprising, since it was agreed for the construction of a cutting workshop in Onet-le -Château "to allow farmers to make direct sales, as well as the expansion of a curing workshop in Baraqueville", specifies Charles Serin, one of the three founding brothers of the company.

Finally, Patrick Chazal, from the Chamber of Agriculture of Cantal, a neighboring department, reminds us that this aid from the Pac is not "bonuses& quot;, but "compensatory aid for reduced income." < /p> I subscribe to read more