Wolf, drought, Pac, viticulture… the four truths of the Minister of Agriculture before his trip to Lozère

Marc Fesneau : “On paye la réussite de la réimplantation du loup”. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

Marc Fesneau will be traveling this Friday March 22 to Lozère as part of World Water Day. He plans, in particular, to visit a pig and sheep farm which has set up a rainwater harvesting system to water its livestock. Interview.

You come to Lozère to discuss several sensitive subjects, in a logic of touring the territories ?

Absolutely, I come to meet farmers on several subjects: the management of meadows, the regulation of wolves and the security of water resources to look at the ways and means so that the herds do not lack water in dry period which also concerns Lozère, a sign of accelerating global warming. I come to see examples of solutions implemented on a territorial scale.

On the management of sensitive grasslands you have obtained progress ?

We have obtained simplifications on a European scale thanks to a game of agricultural diplomacy which allows us to obtain plowing in periods of drought and regulation of the mole rat which comes to destroy the meadows. We had a system that froze things and prevented the reconstruction of the prairies. We still have to obtain advances in flexibility, particularly for new settlers who want to diversify their production.

You will also mention the wolf plan?

Another diplomatic work of classification of the wolf as a "highly protected" to "protected" to relax the right to take without saying that it becomes a huntable species. We pay for the success of the wolf's reestablishment. This is very good for biodiversity because the population is growing but its relocation has reached the limits of supportability through breeding. Furthermore, we want to increase our strength to train more cub scouts. We took these parameters into account to build the new national action plan for the wolf 2024-2029 in consultation with stakeholders.

On these questions you are accused of going backwards on an ecological level ?

These subjects are primarily common sense. A sensitive meadow, when it has burned due to drought, no longer has any ecological interest. On the wolf, the demagoguery would be to say: we must eradicate it, that is not the subject. But if I no longer have pastoralism in the mountains, I no longer have sensitive meadows because they will become wastelands causing the risk of forest fires. Ecological subjects must be taken as a whole. I share with Christophe Béchu, the Minister of Ecology, the preservation of biodiversity and the prospect of an ecological transition.

You were questioned by David Taupiac, MP for Gers, on the delays in payment of aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), for the year 2023& nbsp;?

I told him that we had to stop falling into demagoguery. We said that we would pay the late amounts by March 15 and it is almost paid. There are still measures to be paid: those of the regions 700 million (in European credits), there, he must turn to the Regions. Payment of the remaining 5 to 600 million in agro-environmental and climate measures (MAEC), aid for organic conversion and crop insurance began in March. We are of course trying to speed things up even further. We have already disbursed 300 million euros, we will continue and this will be massively settled in May. We can say what we want but we have already paid 7.6 billion euros. Mr. Taupiac, who was a socialist, could have remembered that during the previous CAP in 2015, farmers were paid two years late given the total unpreparedness of the services of the ;State, creating tragedies in many farms.

Isn't it contradictory to promise emergency funds while the government is in a crisis meeting facing bloodless finances?

This proves that agriculture is a priority in the crisis situations it is going through: storms, epizootic hemorrhagic disease, the wine crisis, the organic crisis ;hellip; The budget of the Ministry of Agriculture is, in fact, historically up by one billion euros in payment appropriations, not counting the emergency measures of the order of 500  M€. But I stand in solidarity with my colleagues and yes the state’s finances are very strained.

The agricultural crisis seems to be radicalizing in certain territories with bankruptcy situations ?

For viticulture it is a structural crisis that cannot be resolved with a snap of the fingers. We have taken temporary measures: crisis distillation, emergency funds to reduce cash flow… payments are being rolled out. For the structural aspect, we are negotiating with Europe for the implementation in the fall of deferred harvesting measures with the possibility of replanting by diversifying grape varieties more in line with consumer demand or by replanting something other than the vine. The agricultural orientation bill will put agriculture back at the heart of political strategies with an important installation/transmission and attractiveness of professions component, as well as another on administrative simplification.

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