President Hollande announced that France, the EU’s top agricultural producer will shift nearly €1 billion (US$1.4 billion) of mostly EU subsidies away from crop farmers and towards struggling livestock farmers through a renegotiation of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy to favor smaller livestock farmers. France will use an option given to EU countries to increase the share of subsidies to a type of production rather than per hectare and will include a subsidy bonus on the first 52 hectares of each farm favoring smaller operations over large crop farms. To ease the transition for grain farmers facing a reduction in aid, France will reduce disparities in basic subsidies by 70% by the end of 2020 rather than the total coverage allowed by the EU. Grain farmers opposed to the shift in aid claim that they are vulnerable to market downturns and that the government is assuming continued high grain prices.
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