Christiane Lambert is sounding the alarm. The president of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA) was on the set of BFMTV and RMC when the world agricultural fair opened in Paris on Saturday.
At the center of the concerns of the representative of the first French agricultural union, the loss of France’s food sovereignty. “France is losing food sovereignty, but we have to initiate a series of political acts and decisions and explain to the French that in order to eat French products, we have to accept having farms that are modernizing, water reserves that allow irrigation, phytosanitary products to treat plants and that there are no prohibitions where other countries can use them,” he explains.
Christiane Lambert points in particular to food security which has long been wrongly taken for granted and an exclusive focus on the environmental dimension of agriculture. “In France, when we produce less, it’s food inflation,” she recalls, lamenting a greater use of imports that maintains this inflation.
Promote the consumption of healthy French products
Because that is the heart of the problem for the president of the FNSEA. Trapped by rising prices, the French are spending less money on food, penalizing farmers on the other side of the chain. “The French dedicate 12 to 13% of their budget to food, he says. But the first item of spending, housing, has increased by 31% in 5 years and is now followed by energy and then electricity, telephony and the Internet”.
Hence the idea of a food check in favor of which Christiane Lambert has been advocating for several months and which she mentioned, among other things, during an interview with Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace this Wednesday. “Today there are around 5 million precarious people and the food check would be made to them, so that they eat better, he specifies. Treating problems related to obesity and malnutrition costs 20,000 million euros a year and obesity affects 17% of people in France.”
“It is the French who decide the priorities of their budget”
The president of the FNSEA also mentioned the judicial reorganizations and liquidations that are multiplying among the industrialists. To respond to the difficulties of the entire sector, he wishes to mobilize the entire chain, from manufacturers to consumers, including producers and distributors, to encourage the purchase of French products and thus “sustain our agriculture”. . “You can’t attract young people to agriculture if there aren’t better prospects,” he says.
Christiane Lambert also spoke about the organic sector for which difficulties are increasing due to traditionally higher prices. “Ce sont les Français qui ont decidé d’acheter 20% de moins de bio, c’est eux qui décident des priorités de leur budget, martèle la présidente de la FNSEA. Pour ceux qui sont précaires, je resendique le chèque alimentaire car il Ya ce besoin d’accompagnement. Tous ceux qui ont porté le bio ne sont pas au rendez-vous. Il ya une mauvaise passe, il faut accompagner les producteurs mais pour qu’ils tiennent, il faut accepter de payer un peu plus querido. “
Source: BFM TV
