Producers, exporters, cooperatives: more than 500 gathered Wednesday in Paris for a day of reflection on ‘the Russian threat’ weighing on the French cereal industry, at a time when Moscow is nibbling away at historic markets of France, reports Agence France Presse.
While in the mid-2000s, France was ‘the third largest exporter of agricultural and agri-food products in the world’ and remains the leading producer and exporter of cereals in Europe, it now faces ‘a certain number of obstacles’ that we must face, immediately declares Jean-François Loiseau, president of the cereals inter-professional association,
“Russia has developed an extraordinary combat armada to, excuse me for the term, invade the buyers’ playing field of cereals in the world and mainly Africa,’ he continues.
It ‘works in an extremely violent way, disintegrates the fundamentals of the market a little and puts us in a difficult position. So we must react. France must react. Europe must react,’ he argued.
Message received by the Minister De
legate for Foreign Trade Franck Riester, who states from the podium: ‘We must work together with you (…) to ensure that tomorrow, there are even more markets open to exports’ in the Maghreb, in Sub-Saharan Africa or China.
The minister assures that he will spare no effort, with the government, to ‘build a specific simplification plan for exporters’. ‘We need to lower customs duties, to secure trade,’ he said.
‘Imagine tomorrow if Vladimir Putin has in his hand not only Russian wheat, but Ukrainian wheat (…) This question of Russia in Ukraine is absolutely [an element] key for the future of your sector,’ he said. he throws.
Together, Russia and Ukraine represent more than a quarter of the world’s wheat supply, or, according to forecasts from the US Department of Agriculture, nearly 70 of the 212 million tonnes exported in the 2023-24 season. A colossal capacity, which would further increase in peacetime.
Encouraged by kyiv’s difficulties in delivering its cereals and sunflower seeds, Russia launched a vast
commercial offensive in Africa and the Middle East.
– ‘Political game’ –
As a symbolic gesture, Moscow delivered some 200,000 tonnes of wheat free of charge to six African countries. But, underlines Yann Lebeau, head of the Intercereals office covering sub-Saharan Africa, the wheat intended for the Central African Republic, transformed into flour in mills in Cameroon, was not free for the populations. For him, if we can speak of ‘donations’ to a regime, ‘to the population, no’.
More damaging for the French sector is the Russian offensive in Algeria, now ‘in the top 5 countries importing Russian wheat’, underlines Roland Guiragossian, head of Intercéales for this country.
Supporting graph, it shows the rapid evolution of trade: the market share of the former French colonial power which was around 90% of Algerian wheat imports in 2019-2020 fell to 20% for the current campaign ( 2023-2024).
In this country, as in others in Africa, the Russian initiative involves military cooperation and first and foremost t
he sale of Russian arms, which before the invasion of Ukraine represented “50% of the Russian arms sales market”. ‘weapons’ on the continent, underlines Thierry Vircoulon, associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris).
The goal of Moscow, which had limited trade with Africa before the war – 20 billion dollars annually compared to 300 billion with China and 280 billion with the EU – is, through the Wagner group (and its new variations) , which combines ‘mercenarism, business and secret diplomacy’, first ‘to make money’, then ‘to oust the West and France in particular’, affirms the researcher.
The French cereal sector is aware of being at the heart of ‘a political game’ and therefore ‘needs political support in the face of Russian power and aggressiveness’, argued Philippe Heusèle, cereal producer in Seine- et-Marne in charge of international relations for the inter-profession.
While agricultural products are exempt from sanctions in the name of global food security, t
he Baltic states have already suspended imports of Russian products. And, according to press reports, the EU is now considering limiting imports of grains and oilseeds from Russia and Belarus.
Source: Burkina Information Agency