"It's a question of principle": Organic farmer anxious about EU-Canada trade deal impact

Record ID: 1429718

  • Title: "It's a question of principle": Organic farmer anxious about EU-Canada trade deal impact
  • Date: 2nd September 2019
  • Summary: LIMERZEL, FRANCE (AUGUST 26, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF COWS WALKING COWS IN FIELD ORGANIC DAIRY FARMER, CHRISTIAN RIVAL, WALKING TOWARDS COWS IN FIELD (SOUNDBITE) (FRENCH) ORGANIC DAIRY FARMER, CHRISTIAN RIVAL, SAYING: "It's not about the volume, or what will happen in the future with the level of competition. The problem is a question of principle, meaning, do we accept products that meet different criteria from our own, or not? It's what we call unfair competition, it's the principle."
  • Embargoed: 16th September 2019 15:26
  • Keywords: dairy farming Common Agricultural Policy CETA organic milk
  • Location: LIMERZEL AND PARIS, FRANCE
  • City: LIMERZEL AND PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Society/Social Issues
  • Reuters ID: LVA001AUYTDMV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Organic farmers "wouldn't survive" without EU aid because of the difficulty of the industry, according to an organic dairy farmer in France.
    Difficulties for the future include lower standards and extra competition from abroad due to an EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA) recently approved by France, the heavily contested free-trade agreement between the European Union and Canada.
    Christian Rival runs a 70-hectare organic dairy farm in the small town of Limerzel, Brittany and has described the difficulties of surviving in the industry.
    He receives €7,000 Euros per year ($7681 USD) in farming subsidies from the EU, which help to keep the farm afloat.
    But the risk posed by CETA to dairy farming, Rival said, is not just economic: "The problem is a question of principle: do we accept products that meet different criteria from our own, or not?"
    He made the crossover to organic farming in 2015 after almost 20 years of conventional, non-organic farming.
    To convert to organic farming, he cut his herd of cows from 60 to 30 and his output from 500,000 litres of milk to 200,000.
    His farm received its organic status two years after he began the conversion, meaning that his milk is now worth €0.47 Euros per litre ($0.52 USD) rather than the €0.33 ($0.36 USD) it was before.
    France is the 14th EU country to approve CETA, after the country's National Assembly voted in favour of the deal by a slim majority in July. It still needs to be approved by all 28 EU member states.
    Supporters claim the agreement will augment trade in both coasts of the Atlantic, with Canada increasing trade between the partners by 20 percent and boost the EU economy by 12 billion euros (10.67 billion pounds) a year and Canada's by C$12 billion (7.39 billion pounds).
    But opponents, mainly composed of French farmers and livestock growers, insist the treaty will increase competition with locally produced goods, such as beef, which they say will be on market shelves beside Canadian beef from meat-and-bone meal.
    (Production: Kilian Le Bouquin, Kathryn Carlson)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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