Star Metro - France unveils 1 bn euro farm aid package after climate-hit summer

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu called the issue the "top priority" of the new political session after a summer that left some farms facing severe crop and livestock losses in the European agricultural powerhouse.

Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said France faced a "double imperative": compensating losses to prevent bankruptcies while helping farms restore production.

"If we... lose productive capacity, we will lose landscapes, market share, sovereignty and quality products," she told a press conference, where she announced the fund of one billion euros ($1.2 billion) in "new money".

"This is a strong response, a significant show of solidarity from all French people in a difficult budgetary situation," Genevard added, as France faces fierce budget debates to try to bring down soaring deficits and debt.

The agricultural sector is struggling with yield losses of up to 50 percent -- and as high as 80 percent for vegetables and fruit -- with the livestock sector severely weakened by losses of fodder and even of animals such as poultry.

The package includes compensation for climate-related crop losses, tax relief for the hardest-hit farms, and a new 235-million-euro fund to help producers buy feed and seed, rebuild after fire damage and prepare next year's planting.

But farming organisations said the support was inadequate given the scale of the crisis, with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 farms at risk.

"We have losses of 10 billion euros. We need at least two billion," the secretary-general of the powerful FNSEA agriculture union, Herve Lapie, told AFP.

The Confederation Paysanne, a left-leaning farmers' union, said it had expected at least three billion euros in support, and warned that more than 80 percent of farmers would be excluded from the scheme.

The government has promised a major recovery plan in coming weeks.

Marylene Bordy, a vegetable grower from the Jura region in eastern France, welcomed the package to "make up for things this year".

"But we need more help to change the way we do things, to invest in equipment, to protect certain crops... to anticipate the future," she said.

"Otherwise it never ends."

P.Graham--SMC