6 million euros for climate change training
The Ministry of Agriculture wants to train 30,000 farmers and 700 additional advisors to adapt to climate change over three years.
Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, brought together associations and professional agricultural organizations on Friday, January 27, 2023 to assess the deployment of projects to adapt agriculture to climate change. This is the 2nd theme of Varenne water and adaptation to climate change, which consists of three axes in total.
Sector adaptation plans
“The minister wanted to call for general mobilization. On the one hand, because summer is approaching and the climate context looks less favorable than the winter of 2021-2022. Indeed, 2022 is the second warmest year ever recorded by Méteo France since 1900. 25% precipitation deficit, the second longest soil drought period, especially between July and August, as well as a deficit in groundwater recharge,” the ministry said.
During this meeting, a progress report on adaptation plans for each sector was prepared with FranceAgriMer. In February 2022, the sectors actually committed to presenting their plans within a year. “We can see that they have all committed to a road map. But some, like Interbev, are more advanced and have completed training. Others, like the poultry sector, were a little behind before the autumn. But we think there are still interesting things at the International Agricultural Show. will be presented”, – believes the Ministry of Agriculture.
Sustainable productions
A special agricultural inspection mission called “sustainable productions” was launched on Friday. This will make it possible to support the sectors that will have the most difficulty exiting the operational plans during the first six months of 2023. What the Minister wants to launch is the commitment of new areas in new sectors. Indeed, there is a northward migration of optimal conditions of some cultures.
During this meeting, regional adaptation plans of the agricultural chambers were also presented. There are thirteen of them, and they are ready now. These are the levers that will be applied to change the predictions and practices of what the climate will be like by 2050. Thus, a matrix of technical institutions with about one hundred identified levers for climate change adaptation was presented.
250 agricultural educational institutions
“The whole challenge is going to the farms to adapt the advice to the operation,” the ministry explains. The Minister thus announced the deployment of a program to scale up climate change adaptation advice on farms, funded by Casdar (Agriculture and Rural Development Trust Account). In 2022, the training of 900 counselors on diagnostic tools covering all support methods has already been funded. Within the framework of the France Relance program, 1,200 carbon diagnostics were also carried out.
The goal today is to go to every farm to reach 10,000 farmers per year in 3 years on climate change adaptation. The aim is also to increase the number of trained advisers to 1,600 and involve 250 agricultural educational institutions. Funding for 2023 is still being investigated by the services of the Ministry of Agriculture, but an envelope of about 6 million euros will be sent for this project.
And to conclude, “there is no model and the most difficult thing will be to bring these hundred tools and all these advisory approaches to individual farms”. In particular, work will be done to equip young people with concrete diagnoses so that they can think about what the climate of the future will be like and thus make conscious decisions about the directions and directions of the sector. production.
