COURNON D’AUVERGNE, France (Reuters) — France will shift $1.4 billion of mainly European Union subsidies toward livestock farmers struggling with low incomes and away from better off crop growers, says president Francois Hollande.
Hollande unveiled how the French government plans to use a renegotiation of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy to favour livestock farmers, although rejigging the bloc’s complex payments has proved a headache.
“My first priority is livestock farming,” Hollande said at a livestock show in central France, where he was met with jeers and heckled repeatedly. “To let breeders in the situation they are in today, with lower income than the rest of the profession, higher risks, heavy constraints, is to weaken French agriculture as a whole.”
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Hollande said France would use a subsidy bonus on the first 128 acres of each farm, which is seen favouring smaller livestock farms over crop farms spread over wider areas.
In addition, France would use an option to increase the share of subsidies tied to a type of production, rather than per acre, to direct more money toward livestock farming and specific sectors such as mountain livestock farmers.
Crop growers have attacked the proposed shift of farm aid, saying it assumes permanent high grain prices rather than recognizing that they are vulnerable to market downturns.
