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FNSEA wants to make farmers “climate coolers”

After his “Solutions contract” , launched at the end of 2017 and which federated its large associations of plant producers around industrialists and agronomic research around the reduction of the use of pesticides, the FNSEA is committed to a new environmental turning point: the fight against global warming, which it intends be a driving force in France.

This is what emerges from the general assembly of the main tricolor agricultural union, at the end of the week in Villejuif. On this occasion, its 2020 orientation report, entitled “Make the climate challenge an opportunity for agriculture”. This document sets out its line of action for the next three years.

Let’s append this subject of climate change and agroecological transitions, let’s not be afraid of words, hammered Christiane Lambert, president of the FNSEA. According to her, ecology is us, we are not living room ecologists, we are expert ecologists.

The adopted report has a historical character, according to Christiane Lambert, who believes that climate change and recurrent droughts put agriculture at a turning point similar to that of the 1960s.

“A cause but also a solution”

If agriculture is a cause of greenhouse gas emissions, which the president of the FNSEA ensures thatshe assumes this part of the responsibility, she is too a solution. Indeed, she believes, farmers can take pride in being positive climate actors, climactors, or climate coolers. This because in our fields, our meadows, our vines, we capture carbon.

The FNSEA does not hesitate, in passing, to denounce the concreteization: 8% of the carbon capture potential in soils can be lost by 2050 by the artificialization of agricultural land, fears Henri Bies-Péré, second vice-president of the FNSEA and one of the four rapporteurs of the document.

The FNSEA also wants to see the development of renewable energies of agricultural origin accelerate: anaerobic digestion recovering animal excreta and plant waste, photovoltaic energy on the roofs of buildings, biofuels, as well as the production of biomaterials such as hemp. or linen, used in construction or composites.

One way to diversify farmers’ incomes which must not encroach on food production, according to Olivier Dauger, cereal producer in the Aisne and in charge of energy / climate issues at the FNSEA.

++ Read also: Farmers call themselves “expert environmentalists”, do you agree?

In line with public subsidy policies

These orientations are likely to coincide with the stimulus plan announced on September 3 by the government, which gives pride of place to the energy transition. In the 1.2 billion euros allocated to agriculture and food, half of the credits are stamped ecological transition.

It is likely that the greening of the award criteria will also be at work in the development of the next common agricultural policy, even if the aid under the second pillar (those which are subjected not to the exploited surface but to production criteria) were not raised to the height of what was hoped by the ecologists.

However, if the general envelope (336.4 billion euros allocated to the CAP, including 62.4 billion euros for France, spread over seven years) as well as the distribution between pillars were fixed in July, many things can be fine-tuned in the fine distribution which must be completed before the end of the year.

Food, a quarter of the carbon footprint of the French

Beyond budgetary considerations, the FNSEA insists, in its report, in a sustained manner on the damage of global warming in the agricultural sector. She notes for example that 30 to 70% of the stagnation of common wheat in France would be attributable to climate change. In the vineyard, harvest is done a month earlier than in 1950. In the field of breeding, total losses related to drought in the livestock sector are estimated at 2 billion euros.

Dreadful a disaster scenario in 2050 if we do nothing, the FNSEA considers that reposition food security at the center of the challenges and reason about the carbon footprint of the plate. However, specifies the union, food represents a quarter of the carbon footprint of the French, 67% of which is attributable to agricultural production.

The FNSEA believes that agriculture can play on the three main pillars that are necessary for France to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 (an objective set by the European Union). It is indeed to divide greenhouse gas emissions by six, multiply our carbon sink by three and completely decarbonize our energy consumption.

“Already good results”

According to the FNSEA, French agriculture is already recording good results: it has reduced its emissions by 8% over the past 20 years. An example, cereals, whose production increased by 30% with 20% less nitrogen. In terms of renewable energies, the contribution of agriculture is 20% of French production, with the possibility of doubling this production in ten years.

In terms of carbon storage, the FNSEA indicates that, according to INRA, soils could capture 8.43 million tonnes of additional CO2 per year by playing on various practices: generalization of intermediate crops, development of agroforestry, grassing of vines, lengthening of temporary meadows, in particular.

This should be compared to the weight of agriculture in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in France, which is 85.3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2018. It emits 19% of the total, which is the second source behind transport (31%), tied with residential, and ahead of industry (18%), energy industry (8%) and waste (3%).

The weight of fertilizers in emissions

In agricultural emissions, energy consumption weighs little (12.2% of the total). While methane emissions by cattle are often pointed out, and with good reason since they are the largest source (45% of the total), fertilizers come just behind (42%) due to nitrous oxide emissions (at heating power 310 times greater than that of carbon dioxide) resulting from the decomposition of nitrogenous fertilizers.

Emissions of ammonia (due to animal excreta) and hexachlolorobenzene (due to pesticides) are two other important items in the agricultural GHG balance.

This numbers provided at the end of June by the Interprofessional Technical Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (CITEPA) indicate that the reduction in agricultural GHGs results not only from the optimization of animal practices and rations, but also to a large extent from the reduction in the size of the cattle herd, motivated not for environmental reasons but by the fight against overproduction dairy.

A carbon sink to be multiplied by 4

In addition, if the FNSEA is in its role to recall the potential of carbon storage in soils, Citepa warned, in its report published this summer: the French carbon sink constituted by agricultural soils and forests has fallen sharply. While it remains positive (soils and forests store more carbon than they emit through decomposition and fires), the net storage of CO2 by French vegetation has fallen from -45 to -25 million tonnes between the mid-2000s and present. This seems mainly due to a decrease in the contribution of forests.

This is still as much withdrawn from the 445 million tonnes emitted by France. But to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, soils and forests will need to store 80 million tonnes, almost four times more than today. The potential gain of 8 million tonnes mentioned by the agricultural union, even if it relates only to agricultural soils and not forest soils, therefore seems low compared to the stakes.

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