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Taking over the streets in central Brittany, where residents don’t dare drink from
the tap.
Evolution of fertilizer consumption.
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Key
figures, France
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Total population:
59 million (1999)
GNP per capita:
US$ 23,480 (1999)
Agricultural workers as share of total labour force:
3.3% (2000)
8.3 % (1980)
Agriculture as share of GDP:
2.3 % (1999)
4 % (1980)
Sources:
UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank. |
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The
only miracle that seems to have been achieved with the breeding strategy of the Green
Revolution is the creation of new pests and diseases and, with them, the ever-increasing
demand for pesticides.
Vandana
Shiva, Indian scientist (1952-)
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Farmers,
environmentalists and consumers unite to battle the ravages of industrial farming
in Brittany
What’s in Brittany?
Three million inhabitants, 57,000 farms and 22 million livestock animals, including
cows fed on animal meal, pigs enclosed in concrete pens by the hundreds and industrially
produced chickens that have never seen the light of day. To catch up economically
with the rest of the country and to provide jobs for its children, half a century
ago this region in western France adopted the only option it was offered: production-intensive
agriculture. Each time there’s a hitch in the system, Brittany suffers. First there
were cyclical pig crises, now there’s mad-cow disease.
But not everybody has lost hope. Standing in a field of clover amidst his 35 cows,
Pascal Hillion believes he’ll make it through the epidemic. His secret: his placid
herbivores have always grazed on grass instead of eating granules containing animal
meal, which causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). “In 1996, about twenty
breeders, including myself, created a label for our products, ‘From Brittanny’s Pastures,’
which has helped us to win back consumers’ trust and to show other breeders how to
proceed. We don’t use nitrate fertilizers, so our method respects the environment,”
he says. “We produce better-quality meat while spending less, working less and earning
a better living. Ten years ago, people thought we were eccentric. Today, young people
who want to become farmers are studying us closely.” The 20 partners have even opened
up a butcher’s shop in Saint-Brieuc.
This initiative will not revolutionize farming in Brittany, but similar experiments
are multiplying thanks to a network of organizations. Seventy of them, grouped together
under the name “Cohérence,” are trying to forge a new alliance between farmers,
environmentalists and consumers.
Everybody in the town of Lorient knows Dr. Lylian Le Goff. Responding to a student
council request, he put organic food on the university restaurant’s menu, demonstrating
that natural products are not necessarily more expensive than others. A nearby highschool
has already followed suit. And many local communities, after banning beef from school
cafeterias, wonder whether this might be the answer to their worries. “Production-intensive
farming claims to supply inexpensive food,” says the doctor, who is also president
of Cohérence. “That would be true if, after coming home from the supermarket,
we didn’t have to pay taxes for the European Union’s common agricultural policy,
which amounts to 3,000 French francs [about $400] per European household, finance
exceptional subsidies to offset periodic drops in pork prices and, above all, foot
the water pollution clean-up bill.”
Brittany is no stranger to agricultural crises. Each time one has arisen, the region
has struggled to overcome it as best it could, but the nagging problem of water pollution
is getting worse. Harmful nitrates from the 500 kilos of fertilizers per hectare
that farmers spread on their crops, or from foul-smelling manure, are building up
in rivers. For Brittany, that represents a toxic waste spill of 200,000 tonnes a
day. In theory, France abides by the polluter-pays principle. But since the first
water pollution law was passed in 1964, powerful agricultural industry pressure groups
have made sure that it has never been enforced.
Marching
for quality water and a different kind of agriculture
As
early as 1969, Eaux et Rivières de Bretagne, an organization of salmon-fishers
and nature-lovers, sounded the alarm. Since then, the group has voiced the discontent
of its members, who have won a lawsuit against the Lyonnaise des Eaux water company:
they deduct the pollution clean-up charges from their bills. “On March 21, 1999,”
says livestock-breeder and Cohérence member Denis Baulier, “8,000 people demonstrated
in Pontivy, in the centre of Brittany, demanding both quality water and a different
kind of agriculture. That is the day when consumers and farmers joined forces.”
As attitudes were changing, the condition of rivers was deteriorating. The government
launched a pure water plan for Brittany in 1990, followed by another one. Ten years
and 1.5 billion francs later, the amount of nitrates is higher than ever. The government
has even opened a second front by implementing a plan to control agricultural pollution.
A recent government accounting office report has blasted the scheme for abysmal management.
“That plan has already cost five billion francs,” says René Louail, a livestock-breeder
from the Côtes d’Armor region and spokesman for the Confédération
paysanne, a farmers’ group. “For the most part, it’s been used to approve or legitimate
farms that have gone around the law to expand. There won’t be any significant improvement
of Brittany’s water until more ecological farming methods are adopted.”
André Pochon agrees. “Farming in Brittany started spinning out of control
when the bond with the soil was broken,” he says. Dédé, as everybody
calls him, has had time to think the matter over. In 1944, when he was 11 years old,
a teacher convinced his parents to put him into an accelerated programme. Two years
later he graduated and was encouraged to enroll in a teachers’ training college.
But he preferred cows and the Jeunesse agricole chrétienne, a Christian farmers’
youth group that was a breeding ground for the trade union cadres who were going
to revolutionize Brittany’s agriculture. “We did a terrific job up to 1970. We boosted
our yield threefold while keeping the same number of farms. At that time, we sold
butter and cheese. We let cows roam freely in the meadows and raised pigs on whey.
But when industrialists introduced milk collection, intensive pig-breeding started
and with it, the elimination of small farms and the race to increase yields.”
Dédé went along with the trend, but also took correspondence courses
and read a lot. “I became an agronomist in spite of myself,” he says. He also perfected
his method of combining grass with clover to fix nitrogen in the soil. As a result,
he pursued and improved the fodder revolution that had been under way for several
decades. He also convinced other farmers around him. A master of the one-liner, he
says, “A cow is a mower in front and a manure-spreader in the rear. There’s no need
for cutting the grass or for mineral fertilizers.” Today, his method has caught on
with hundreds of livestock-breeders in Brittany, like Pascal Hillion. But when André
Pochon started using it, the corn-soybean combination was being imposed to feed cattle.
“It’s a monumental mistake except for agro-business! Farmers have to buy their hybrid
seeds and herbicides, purchase farm equipment and buildings for intensive breeding,
level their knolls, drain wet land, etc. The cost is sky-high and the consequences
for the environment are serious. If you leave the soil bare in the winter, the corn
actually increases nitrate run-off.”
In the early days of the common agricultural policy, Europe negotiated its place
as a food and agricultural power with the United States. It obtained a green light,
except in one area: animal feed. To protect its farmers, the United States had to
export their soy. Today, France imports over four million tonnes of soybeans, a good
proportion of which is genetically modified. André Pochon has been making
the same arguments for 25 years. At first, ecologists listened to him. Then organizations
did. “I help them evolve and they’ve changed my perception. Together, we’ve changed
people’s mentalities.”
Sustainable agriculture labels are flourishing for all farm products. In Brittany,
people would like to be able to drink tap water again. Since the mad cow crisis broke
out, local communities have been seeking more reliable meat supplies. And the public
is shaken. But people are starting to assess the stakes, and know that farmers can
adapt. They also know that it’s everybody’s business to decide whether to change
with or against nature. |
