The Strongmen Speaking in the Name of the Farmers
Representation matters, especially on an issue that’s so integral to our continued existence
Last Summer, Thin Ink spent two issues discussing the findings of an investigation I was involved in as part of Lighthouse Reports. It looked at farm unions in a number of European countries and Copa-Cogeca, the oldest and most influential farm lobby group in Brussels.
For the first issue, I wrote about what we discovered. For the second, I interviewed one of the two Romanian journalists we worked with who wrote a two-part story on their shocking findings, including the fact that 0.56% of the farms own half of the land.
We’ve been working on a follow-up investigation for a few months now and this week, we start publishing the first of what I hope will be multiple pieces to come. It’s been a very stressful and exhausting period, but I also believe this is a very important topic and am very proud of our work. So watch this space.
Let’s start with an irrefutable fact: Farmers should have representation.
There is no question their concerns should be heard at both political and societal levels, and they should be given the support they need to continue doing their job.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk a bit about why it is also important to point out problems with representation.
Last year, we looked into Copa-Cogeca, which had said they represent more than 22 million farmers and their families, which is pretty much the number of farmers in the EU. This gives them legitimacy and politicians, bureaucrats and other lobby groups listen to them and take what they say as what farmers want and need.
But we found that while Copa-Cogeca has a lot of power and sway in Brussels, they represent mostly the interests of the big, industrial farmers and cooperatives and not the small- and medium-sized farmers that make up the bulk of European agriculture. We found that membership numbers are opaque, unavailable, or unreliable. It is nowhere near 22 million.
We also spoke to a lot of small farmers and young farmers in many parts of Europe who feel neglected, unrepresented, and disagreed with the positions Copa-Cogeca has taken.
So with the European elections just around the corner and farming - and appeasing farmers - becoming a major political platform in these elections, we thought it was important to do a follow-up investigation, particularly in some of the largest and most powerful agricultural countries in Europe.
France: where a powerful union “co-manage” agricultural policy with the government
FNSEA (the Fédération nationale des syndicats d'exploitants agricoles), established in 1946, is the biggest union, controlling virtually all of France's chambers of agriculture despite representing only a quarter of the profession, according the analysis from our media partners Splann!, a Brittany-based investigative journalism outlet.
It has wielded considerable power over successive French governments, to the point where academics and rival farm unions have said it and the government co-determines the country’s agricultural policy.
In fact, at the at the closing of FNSEA’s 78th annual congress in March this year, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, said he had worked with the union to come up with a suite of measures to stop farmers’ protests. French newspaper Le Monde took the speech as an admission of this co-management. (Pro Tip 1: Switch on your Google or Firefox Translate if you, like me, can’t speak French.)
FNSEA is also influential in Brussels too. Many of its leaders have gone on to become bigwigs at Copa-Cogeca.
But the union has presided over a changing landscape in French farming, which, according to its latest agricultural census, has lost about 100,000 farms between 2010 and 2020. There are now a total of 389,900 farms, following a 2.3% decline every year for the past decade.
Yet the average size of farms continues to increase: by 15 hectares between 2010 and 2020 and by 27 hectares compared to 2020. This is most prominent in dairy farms, the census said.
So how does FNSEA maintains its power amid the disappearance of farms and farmers?
Well, Splann! tried to understand this through an analysis of four key leaders of FNSEA and provided us with an unprecedented mapping of the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, roles they hold. It shows that these powerful men occupy positions in a wide range of public and private bodies.
They own much more land than the average members they are supposed to represent. They also received many times more subsidies than the average farmer and control/own/have stakes in multiple companies.
Take as an example Arnaud Rousseau, FNSEA President, and Thierry Coué, the deputy general secretary.
Rousseau is the head of a 700-hectare cereal farm and has received farm subsidies totalling 1.91 million Euros between 2014-2022 via multiple companies. Assuming that’s for a 9-year period, he received around 212,000 Euros per year.
Coué co-owned a pig breeding company with his wife which has received more than 283,000 Euros in farm subsidies between 2016-2022. Assuming that’s for a 7-year period, this comes up to more than 40,000 Euros a year. Coué also holds 18 different positions including being the administrator of an institution which decides which pesticides can be used or not and is majority shareholder of an agricultural press company.
For context, the average farm size in France is around 70 hectares and the average income support (EU subsidies) French farmers received in 2022 was 23,670 Euros.
FNSEA has also been accused of bullying behaviour by Confédération Paysanne and other smaller unions, including sending threatening messages.
In this French television show that came out earlier this year, the journalists detailed these accusations and saw the evidence of threats on the mobile phones. They even spoke to FNSEA’s regional chapters, who didn’t deny sending such threats. (Pro Tip 2: You’re gonna need a French friend or an AI programme to do the captions if you don’t speak French. Fortunately, I have a colleague who is both French and knows how to do the latter.)
The same TV show also said FNSEA has opposed facilitating healthcare for farmers affected by pesticide use and this includes Paul François, whose father was one of the founders of FNSEA. Apparently FNSEA pressured Paul to drop his lawsuit against Monsanto years ago. Paul didn’t and went on to win the case.
Further reading
Splann!: FNSEA's agricultural lobbying scrutinised (In French)
Lighthouse Reports: Farmers Protest, Who Gains?
Climate Change is Here and It’s Killing Us and Our Crops
Regular readers of Thin Ink knows I’ve been banging on about Europe being the fastest-warming continent in the world and the consequences of this on our food systems, including food production. The European Environment Agency itself has said the continent’s is not prepared for the impact of megadroughts and other extreme weather events.
Now we have another report. The Lancet Countdown in Europe said rising heat has already negatively affected people’s health and mortality, heightened the risk of infectious diseases, and increased wildfire danger. This is the second report tracking progress on health and climate change in Europe.
What’s more, “climate change resulted in almost 12 million additional people affected by moderate or severe food insecurity in Europe”. (Emphasis mine)
Here are a few more findings -
The health impacts are going to be unevenly distributed, due to a combination of geography, economic levels, and inequity. What does this mean? “Populations most affected tend to be those least responsible and less likely to be recognised or prioritised,” said the report. For example, heat-related mortality was twice as high in women compared with men.
In 2020, 2.48 million deaths were “attributable to imbalanced, non-sustainable diets (ie, diets with increased dietary health risks, such as those with too much red meat or too few fruits and vegetables)”.
“European countries continue to drive environmental pressures and negative climate and health impacts elsewhere by their consumption of goods and services produced in other parts of the world.”
“The pace at which European countries are moving towards net-zero emissions remains woefully inadequate, with Europe's current trajectory consistent with achieving carbon neutrality only by 2100.”
But it’s not just our health we should be worried about. The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) this week published an estimation of financial losses UK farmers are facing as a result of an “unexpectedly wet” winter.
Using yield data and surveys from the government, ECIU said those growing key arable crops - wheat, winter barley, and oilseed rape - will see revenue declines between 26.5% and 38% from 2023 levels. Spring barley and oats production is expected to increase but not enough to cover these losses.
“Taken together, we estimate that UK farmers stand to lose £889m on these crops in 2024 compared to 2023. Compared to the 2015-2023 average production, this increased to £1.18 billion at 2024 prices.”
These two reports explain why I am an angry brown woman. Climate change is already affecting people and food production and it feels like our emperors are fiddling while Rome burns.
Not everyone can change their dietary habits overnight, afford an EV, or work only during the cooler hours. Governments need to be helping citizens - and that includes farmers - to adapt and become resilient to climate impacts, and push the private sector to change some of its practices.
Instead, many are busy chasing short-term gains and power.
Thin’s Pickings
The Night Calver - Ambrook Research
A beautiful, evocative piece with words from Darby Minow Smith and images from Siri Kaur, about the former’s return - both physically and metaphorically - from academia in NYC to her family’s French in Montana, and her shift as “a midnight bovine midwife.”
What Is Italy’s Most Prized Stuffed Pasta? - The New York Times
Not much more to say than “nom nom nom nom nom”. And yes I do have a slight bias because that’s my home region now.
Want more food coverage? Here are two more good sources.
Errol Schweizer, who has been featured in Thin Ink before and co-host The Checkout podcast, which highlights essential workers in food retail and supply chain, launched a newsletter earlier this month. You can expect the same no-nonsense talk/writing that he’s known for. Subscribe to The Checkout Grocery Update here.
Wonderful news for those who misses The Counter’s reportage. Grist, a non-profit media org that has done some really good stories on climate issues, has acquired The Counter and its archives. Grist will also expand its food and agriculture coverage with a new vertical dedicated to this topic. Woop!
As always, please feel free to share this post and send tips and thoughts on mastodon @ThinInk@journa.host, my LinkedIn page, twitter @thinink, or via e-mail thin@thin-ink.net.