Farmers affected in November by storms and floods in Brittany, Normandy and Hauts-de-France will be able to benefit from a “fund of 80 million euros”, announced Wednesday the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau . “As for the agricultural world – I combine Brittany, Normandy, Hauts-de-France (…) it is a fund of 80 million euros which will make it possible to cover both harvest losses but also investment losses which would not be covered by insurance subjects,” the minister declared on France Info. “We have created a fund which makes it possible to avoid (…) holes in the racket” in dealing with the damage, added Marc Fesneau.
Storms Ciaran and Domingos, then the precipitation which caused rivers to overflow in Hauts-de-France, severely affected farmers in these regions, who had greenhouses uprooted, buildings flooded or crops under water. An “exceptional support fund” for farmers was mentioned during a trip to Pas-de-Calais on Tuesday by Head of State Emmanuel Macron. Without giving an amount, Marc Fesneau specified in the evening on
The minister indicated on France Info on Wednesday that “around a hundred” farms in the north of France had “flooded buildings but there are also flooded lands, flooded crops”. He declared that “200 cattle” had perished, “drowned by the too sudden rise in water” and that there were, “without doubt, several thousand hectares” of sugar beet crops which “could not be harvested”. From the recession, “we will have a more complete vision of the extent of the damage”, underlined the minister.
Marc Fesneau is expected Thursday and Friday in Brittany. “We will be attentive to the announcement of compensation commensurate with the considerable damage,” warned Nupes MP from Finistère Mélanie Thomin in a press release, who criticizes the executive for having “broken its promise”. In Brittany, at the beginning of November, Emmanuel Macron assured that the state of natural disaster would be activated “wherever we can do it”.
Also read: Floods, storms… Towards a further increase in home insurance prices in 2024?
But unlike Hauts-de-France, no Breton municipality has been classified as a natural disaster on the grounds that wind-related disasters do not fall into this regime, unlike floods, explained Florence Lustman, President of France. Insurers, Tuesday on RTL. “This will not prevent risks or damage from being covered in Brittany too” via the agricultural disaster system, “it is just not the same mechanism”, declared the Minister of Agriculture on Wednesday morning.