Lies, damned lies and farm stats

FARMERS in Aquitaine have been astonished to discover that despite a summer of massed protests outside supermarkets and pleas to the authorities for financial aid the Ministry of Agriculture sees no cause for alarm in the region.

Latest ministry statistics show that, while farming income is tumbling across France – about 34% down on last year – farmers in Aquitaine are apparently 57% better off.

However, farming groups in the region see the figures as “lies, damned lies and statistics”, with the Direction Régionale de l’Agriculture en Aquitaine saying the figures are “incomprehensible”.

The 166% rise in production by vineyards in the Gironde was because the 2008 récolte was all but wiped out by mildew.

Viticulteurs also saw their income wiped out and Frédéric Alvergne, of Chateau Bellevue, Lugon et l’Ile du Car said it was a “catastrophic” situation.

Increased production did not mean increased income and, despite 2009 being an exceptional year for wine, income was poor.

“It is the farming paradox that, in good years, we do not get good prices while, in bad years, we have little wine but get good prices.”

Mr Alvergne and several other viti-culteurs from the area are just back from a mission to Beijing in the hope of selling their wines to the Chinese.

He said: “We are doing everything we can to sell our wines. I sell direct from the vineyard here, I sell to restaurants but I am just a small vineyard, a little drop in the ocean.

“We have to ask ourselves: who is drinking wine these days? It’s the Chinese – and we have to go out and sell to them.

“We hope we get a return. Despite what people think, we are not rich people in the vineyards and we have to go out and sell – even with the Chinese we will not get a good price, but at least we will be selling. The French market is full to over-flowing with wine.”

Other winemakers have said today’s prices are less in real terms than they were in 1995.

Across the French farming industry the average 34% drop in income means farm pay is at its lowest in 30 years at €14,600. Income for cereal farmers is down 57%, dairy farmers down 50%, fruit farmers down 44%.

The problems of the dairy industry have been well-publicised ,with farmers dumping milk on fields and in city centres because they cannot get prices to match the costs of production.

Apple farmers, too, have been hit and last month protested in Périgueux, Dordogne, about supermarket prices. They gave away fruit and leaflets saying they got €0.29 a kilo for apples when it costed €0.40 to grow them.

That same day the Leclerc supermarket dropped its apple prices to €1.50/kg from €2.10.