Arnaud Rousseau, a large farmer and president of the oil giant Avril, took on Thursday the head of the majority French agricultural union, the FNSEA, which has had the ear of political leaders for 77 years.
Elected by his peers, Mr. Rousseau, 49, was the only candidate for the presidency of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA).
Pleading for a “new pact with society”, according to him disconnected from agricultural realities and the seasons, he presented his priorities: “sovereignty and competitiveness”, which go hand in hand with “farmers’ income, still far from be at the level” to attract new generations.
The Seine-et-Marnais farmer takes over from pig farmer Christiane Lambert who led the union for six years before announcing, at the end of 2022, that she did not want a third term. Ms Lambert remains president of Copa, the main organization for the defense of farmers’ interests at European level.
An effective lobby, the FNSEA has largely shaped French agricultural policy since its post-war creation, in a form of “co-management” denounced by competing organisations.
The employers’ union still claims 210,000 members (former operators included). With 55.55% of the votes in the last professional elections, it retains control of most chambers of agriculture.
In a message sent to AFP, the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau sent his “congratulations” to Arnaud Rousseau.
“In a lucid and demanding dialogue with professional agricultural organizations, but also with society as a whole, I know that we will be able to work on a common path to face a challenge: that of the renewal of generations”, he said. He underlines.
In an interview with AFP, Mr. Rousseau explained that his objective, within three years, is to gain ground on the plate of the French (60% of the fruit and half of the chickens are imported) .
“We must continue to produce, and to say that is not productivism”, he declared, while the FNSEA is regularly criticized for feeding an agricultural model attached above all to increase in volume to the detriment of biodiversity and the welfare of farmed animals.
“This new president ticks all the boxes to pursue a conservative vision of agriculture, where productivism and agribusiness dominate,” reacted Greenpeace.
The union is on the front line to denounce the prohibitions, without alternatives, of pesticides, or to defend the “basins” of water storage in the Marais poitevin.
On these subjects, its positions are aligned with those of the government.
Marc Fesneau was applauded by FNSEA unionists at the end of March, announcing that he had asked the health agency Anses for a “reassessment of its decision” on a herbicide widely used for corn, soybeans and sunflowers, S- metolachlor, the chemical derivatives of which have been detected above permitted limits in groundwater – and therefore potentially in drinking water.
“Obviously it’s a problem for the farmer that I am, we don’t live apart from society”, but “if we have to get out of it, we have to do it in a harmonized way” with European neighbors “and we have to do it with alternative solutions,” Rousseau told AFP.
The office of the FNSEA was renewed on Thursday: it includes in particular the cereal farmer and pig breeder from Marne Hervé Lapie (general secretary), the winemaker from Hérault Jérôme Despey (first vice-president) and the cattle breeder from Cantal Patrick Benezit (second vice-president).
Producer of field crops (rapeseed, sunflower, wheat, beet, corn) in Seine-et-Marne, Mr. Rousseau is also president of the agro-industrial group Avril, of which he will keep the head.
This oil giant (nearly seven billion in turnover in 2021) doubled as an investment company, is present in the cupboards of the French via the Lesieur and Puget brands, but this is only part of his activity. It is also active in animal feed, agrofuels and the chemistry of vegetable oils and proteins.
04/13/2023 23:43:37 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP