Agricultural orientation bill: what does the text examined this Tuesday in the Senate say, which elevates agriculture to the rank of “major general interest” ?

Presented to the Senate on Tuesday, February 4, the text will be voted on by the same chamber on February 18. A vote that comes only a few days before the opening of the Salon de l'Agriculture, which will be held from February 22 to March 2.

Nearly a year after its submission by the Attal government, the agricultural orientation bill arrives on Tuesday, February 4 in the Senate chamber, which is preparing to strengthen this text, eagerly awaited by the sector a few days before the Agricultural Show. Initially supported by Marc Fesneau when it was adopted by the National Assembly in early spring 2024, suspended by the dissolution and then postponed by the censure, this text is now in the hands of Annie Genevard.

A text adopted in spring 2024

Coming from the Republicans, the Minister of Agriculture shares many points in common with the vision of the senators, dominated by a right-centrist alliance. This suggests a comfortable adoption of this programmatic text, which covers a number of subjects, from education to training, including the crucial issue of farm transfers.

The debates in the upper house, which will stretch until the formal vote on February 18, will nevertheless revive divisions, with the left vigorously opposed to a text that, according to it, embodies “setbacks” on the environmental issue.

Ms. Genevard refutes this interpretation: “My deep conviction is that opposing the environment and agriculture constitutes an impasse”, she assured senators in recent days. The government has, however, been under pressure for several months by the profession and agricultural unions, who are asking it to speed up this legislative aspect.

A “race against time to provide solutions”

FNSEA boss Arnaud Rousseau, received in January at Matignon, did not fail to mention a “race against time to provide solutions”, a few days before the Paris Agricultural Show, which will crystallize all the profession's demands, starting on February 22.

“Farmers need this text as the Show approaches,” centrist Franck Menonville, one of the two rapporteurs of the text, insists to AFP. The latter calls on the High Assembly to “avoid caricatures” by voting to “legally rearm the notion of food sovereignty”.

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This is indeed the heart of this orientation law, which elevates agriculture to the rank of “major general interest”to its inaugural article. In committee, the Senate maintained this notion while going further, notably establishing “food sovereignty” as “fundamental interest of the Nation”.

The Senate also instituted a decried principle of “non-regression of food sovereignty”, according to which “public policies having an impact on agriculture can only improve the agricultural potential of the Nation”. The legal scope of this provision, which deliberately echoes the principle of “non-environmental regression” already in existence, questions its detractors.

“When we did this on the environment, we said it would have no impact and we saw that it was the opposite. Why wouldn't it work ?“, sweeps Laurent Duplomb (LR), the other rapporteur of the text. If the notion has not convinced the government which will try to have it removed, Laurent Duplomb assumes, for his part, a more “ambitious” senatorial version, likely according to him to respond to the “lack of political courage” of the initial text”.

The left is worried about a “hardening” and a “radicalization” of the debate

This approach ulcerates the left, which is alarmed by a “hardening” and a “radicalization” of the public debate on agriculture, according to environmentalist Daniel Salmon. “The right believes that there is only one model that is good, that of food sovereignty rewritten in a liberal sauce”, he adds.

Among its other provisions, the text proposes measures on training, with the creation of a “Bachelor Agro”, a bac + 3 diploma intended to be a reference for the future. The senators also propose to create a “agricultural volunteering” as part of the civic service.

The creation of a departmental one-stop shop intended to promote the installation and transfer of farms is also at the heart of the project. The text also intends to speed up litigation procedures in the event of appeals against water storage or livestock buildings, and proposes to adjust the sanctions in the event of unintentional damage to the environment.

The government also proposed requiring those responsible for these attacks to take an environmental awareness course, while the Senate favors an administrative fine.

In this bill presented, the text on hedges has been rewritten. From now on, a cartographic inventory would be created with a departmental one-stop shop for their management, whether they are agricultural or not. This shop will set the possible dates for trimming and take felling requests. For these requests, the text introduces the notion of “coefficient” which will make it possible to define the ecological and ecosystem interests of the hedge as well as the traditions of the territory concerned.