Letters
French farmers need to adapt to the modern world - but we should too
Two Connexion readers eye the ongoing crisis in French agriculture
Strike action: farming must adapt to the modern world
Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock
To the Editor,
Regarding Nabila Ramdani’s October column, it is not that farming must adapt to the modern world – it is also that the modern world adapts to a different model of farming.
Consumers should eat better quality/welfare meat and dairy (if they must), raised on a humane scale – so there will be less, but of higher quality.
And agriculturalists are not exempt. Vegetables and fruit contain far fewer nutrients than they used to even though they are glossier... at a cost.
This involves the widespread use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers, which are destroying the fertility of the land and, of course, bees and other insects.
There is another way, but no centre/right-wing government will consider it. It involves re-education of the population as to what they eat and how it is manufactured; the destruction of cultural "heritage" myths concerning foods; progressive taxation of meat and charcuterie etc; the banning of high-processed foods with chemical additives; and the re-education of livestock farmers to produce at a smaller/organic/free-range scale to meet reduced demand… with a reform of CAP to encourage this.
A.R., by email
To the Editor,
Nabila Ramdani’s outspoken articles on the underside of French political, economic and ‘cultural’ life sit very well with Simon Heffer’s political analyses.
The October issue on French agricultural subsidies, fiercely imposed by Charles de Gaulle and those at his behest when Europe was being fashioned, and even more so by the cow-whisperer Jacques Chirac who built his political career on it, are part of the eternal French fixation on entitlement (usually preceded by colère).
French farmers still block highways and think nothing of dumping tons of manure, for which their flatulent cows are famous, in front of government buildings whenever the issue of their competitiveness, and the threat of dreaded concurrence déloyale, is raised.
G.S., Paris
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