What the experts say: Marie-Cécile Damave: reconciling economic profitability and climate action

Interview with Marie-Cécile Damave for the Hectar website.

Marie-Cécile Damave, Head of Innovations and International Affairs at Agridées, worked on the subject of environmental and economic sustainability on farms. How can the two be reconciled? How can farmers, when setting up or making a transition in their practices, be supported and share the financial burden?

HECTAR: Farmers are both impacted by severe weather and have a major role to play in the fight against global warming. Their business is under threat, but at the same time they have to invest in finding solutions: is it realistic to make farmers bear the entire burden of this transition?

No, it’s not realistic. We have to consider that farmers are part of a chain of players, a chain of transformation, not only of food but also of agro-industry. Decarbonation is at every level of these chains, and farmers are a stakeholder in all of them. In France, agriculture is responsible for around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, but farmers are not the only players in agricultural production! This is what makes it so difficult to change practices…