4 PRIORITIES TO ACHIEVE OUR GOALS

PROMOTING INVESTMENT and START-UP

SUPPORTING price

ENSURINGfarm safety

COMPENSATING differencesand RECOGNIZING existing assets

Resolutely forward-looking, agricultural professional organizations of the Massif Central want an ambitious Policy to support the starting up and the training of young professionals but also the renewal of farmers generations on sustainable and liveable farms.

Beyond the heads of farms, employment in agriculture is a major issue that should be supported both by training employees and employers, and by creating jobs.

Besides, investment and modernization of production tools are mandatory.

Finally, research and innovation in agriculture must be supported in order to anticipate citizen-consumer expectations, new valuations and more generally the expectations of domestic and international markets as much as possible.

Price and volume management remains the most effective tool to ensure the income of farmers. Establishing a modern system to control production and a greater flexibility of the CAP during crisis is a necessity.

Permanent tools for market management : Proposals of the Agricultural Professional Organizations of Massif Central revolve around :• Measures for permanent volume management,• Measures to develop an offensive export policy,• Measures to support segmentation and to promote products on domestic and foreign markets.

Crisis Specific tools : Europe intervention is mandatory when prices are dropping.Actions to be implemented are : first, temporarily withdraw products from the market and, second, directly compensate the losses suffered by the farms.

Proposals of the Agricultural Professional Organizations of Massif Central revolve around :• The price support through counter-cyclical payments based on volume quota,• A stock management during crisis with an accessible storage,• A direct support to farmers income during a crisis, and promoting new markets.

It is necessary that CAP takes into account producing costs their variability between member states in its intervention policy.

Facing sanitary risks

The FMSE (national mutual fund for sanitary and environmental risks in agriculture) shows that setting up a mutual system among all agricultural productive sectors

The Less Favoured Area scheme supports the entire economy of structurally disadvantaged rural and mountain areas through a Compensatory Allowances.

Zoning and revaluations whithin a national management framework is therefore compulsory.

Coupled payments to targeted commodities remain essential to ensure a well-balanced development of production capacities and an upgraded competitiveness throughout the territory. The recognition of the existing assets both environmental and social should be valued.

allows safety nets to address crisis. FMSE performance is essentially due to its nature : a fund with low operating costs. It is therefore necessary to improve it through the CAP.

Facing climate risks

Based on FMSE experience, agricultural professional organizations of the Massif Central offer to upgrade the FNGRA to a Mutual Fund for Climate Risk in Agriculture

(FMC in French) fueled by a tax on insurance premiums and by National State and European funds.

Some excesses of the current CAP leads to a breakdown of the agriculture as we know it. Every single farm is concerned whatever its size. Changes in the French agricultural model have already occurred and give a glance of what could be the future of our agriculture if we do not stand against this :

• Farms profitability is not assured : the lack of policies to manage agricultural markets allows speculation on commodities essential to feed people. In this context, many farmers do not live decently on their work and do not even cover their production costs.

• Agriculture is losing its very purpose : to produce !Policies that support vulnerable areas are now biased by concerns mainly «landscape-oriented”. They are shifting from the original objectives: to balance differences in competitiveness to ensure a producing-oriented agriculture fairly distributed throughout the territory and a decent income for farmers.

• The financialisation of commodities markets breaks the virtuous pattern of farm transfer. To benefit from the CAP is possible without holding the majority of the capital or even working on the farm. It allows farms to be owned by investors with no real anchor to the territory or farmers who are no longer retiring.

• Environmental assets on farms based on grassland and pastoral resource are neither identified nor valued. The agriculture in the Massif Central already complies with environmental and societal expectations. The fact that such existing assets are not recognized is unfair. The green payment is a striking illustration : the most supported farms are not the more virtuous.

THE EXCESSESof current CAP

Agricultural professional organizations from Massif Central expect the CAP to be much more consistent with the expectations of the citizen-consumer and the needs of farmers.

The new CAP must address various challenges :• To feed mankind and thus to produce goods

that meet citizens-consumers expectations whatsoever (quantity, quality, naturalness, local, welfare, environment ...)

• To have a well-distributed production throughout the territory and allowing farmers to generate an income from their work.

Before presenting our proposals to achieve these goals, the model we want for our farms should be defined. But is there only one model or several? The diversity of production systems is a wealth essential to preserve. For agricultural professional organizations of Massif Central, this diversity is fundamentally grounded on the following basis :

FOR A FORWARD LOOKINGagriculture

• A production capital, excluding land, mostly owned by active farmers who decide and work on the farms,

• Active farmers who have not reached the legal age of retirement.

This basis is essential :• To sustain the ability of agriculture to meet the

expectations of a society that wants farmers to be accountable for their production work, which contributes significantly to the national economy and to the existence of rural areas and which ensure food security to citizens-consumers.

• To ensure the generational renewal on farms that allows the constant improvement of a producing agriculture (both qualitative and quantitative) and working conditions.

THE MASSIF CENTRALareaThe Massif Central includes 4 regions and 22 departments. “Massif” is a French approach setting up an administrative authority to promote the development of mountain areas. The “Massif” area includes mountain areas, but also areas that they are immediately contiguous (from foothills to the plains) and, thus, ensure the continuity of the massif.

THE LARGEST GRASSLAND in EuropeAs large as Ireland (85 000 km²), this area represents a 4.1 million hectares utilized agricultural area with 85% of grassland and 60% of permanent grassland. In comparison, the ratio “permanent grassland”/UAA is 28% at national level and 25% at European level : with 2.6 million hectares of permanent grassland, the Massif Central represents one third of the national area. Besides, the area of French grasslands decreased by 30% over the last 30 years, but it has been maintained in the Massif Central.

Farming and food industry play a major role in the economy of the Massif Central:• Know-how and quality production,• The preservation of rural areas,• 4.5% of all the employees of the Massif Central (3.7% in France)• More than 8% of agricultural actives (90,381 permanent agricultural actives and 40,000 employees in the food industry)

An arduous TERRITORY95% of the communes (French local administrative areas) of the Massif Central are located in less favoured areas, of which 60% are in mountain area (it represents 62% of all the French communes located in mountain areas at national level)THE KEY ROLE OF

of agriculture in the economy

MASSIF CENTRAL land of agricultural productions THE WATER TOWER

of France Massif central is called the Water Tower of France for its rich rivers system and the quality of its waters. This area has a great diversity of rivers and lakes for about 70 000 km. It includes the heads of watersheds of the major French rivers. The Massif Central has 1/3 of the French water springs and produces half of the mineral waters of the country; which places it as the main French “massif” for the economic activity valuating groundwater

Massif Central : vivid rural areas producing to feed people

« The agricultural professional organisations of Massif Central, Farmers Unions and Chambers of Agriculture have built what could be a brand new CAP serving farmers, citizens and territories. Those proposals aim at stopping the cycle of repetitive crisis generated by ultra liberal EU decisions. They will help resporing a fair policy for price management and balanced competitiveness between territories. »

Agricultural professional representatives of Massif Central

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The FDSEA and JA Massif Central

Copamac Sidam :9 allée Pierre de Fermat - 63170 Aubière04 73 28 78 33 - sidam@aura.chambagri.fr

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Less favoured area in Massif central in 2011

MountainPiedmontLFA

Distribution of professional farms of the Massif Central

Beef catleDairy catleMixed Catle farmingSmall ruminants (sheep, goats ...)PolycultureSalless agricultureCrepsViticultureFruit GrewersGardening

Share of UAA in permanent grassland in 2010