Around a hundred farmers demonstrated on Thursday, at the call of the Indre-et-Loire Rural Coordination, in front of the state services in Tours to demand the
“payment of 90% of
CAP premiums
”
, noted an AFP correspondent. The demonstrators placed some tires in front of the Departmental Territorial Directorate building, blocked an adjacent avenue and parked around thirty tractors on the road to express their discontent.
Farmers, who were awaiting the payment of aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on March 15, are asking the authorities to pay 90% of the subsidies to honor their bills, they said.
“We cannot accept that there are regular checks and that, on the other hand, the DDT does not pay what is due
,” the president of the Rural Coordination of Indre-et-lamented to AFP. Loire, Didier Tranchant.
Software problem
The authorities cite a software problem to explain the non-payment of this aid and assure that payment will be made in September. Aid paid under the CAP can represent a very significant part of farmers' income, especially for those who have recently set up.
To respond to the anger of farmers, who have led a wave of virulent actions throughout France since the start of the year, the government has accepted numerous demands, from the suspension of the plan to reduce pesticides to from emergency aid to livestock breeding and organic agriculture, including the limitation of appeals against giant water reserves for irrigation, nicknamed
“megabasins”
by their opponents. On Tuesday in Brussels, the Member States of the European Union approved a revision of the CAP unraveling its environmental rules (compulsory fallows, hedges, controls, etc.) and discussed ways to boost farmers' income.