News Politics
Comments on French quality mark reward farmer
In France, a kind of Nutri-Score will be placed on primary agricultural products that reflects the reward for the farmer, the Rémunéra score. Dutch agricultural sector organizations are not immediately enthusiastic about the idea. A frequently heard doubt is whether consumers ultimately consider price more important.
The Rémunéra score is part of French legislation and regulations that should improve the farmer's earning capacity. The quality mark was introduced by the French Ministry of Agriculture on a trial basis for five years. This includes fresh fruit and vegetables, beef, pork, sheep and goat meat, dairy products and eggs. Other products such as wine, poultry and grains are not included. The score ranges from A+ to F, with A+ being the highest score. Lidl France already introduced the score for a number of specific beef products a year ago.
'Most consumers opt for the lowest price'
NAV chairman Teun de Jong thinks the Rémunéra score is 'certainly not worthless', but expects that it will ultimately only have a small effect. "It's certainly a start if you don't have anything, but we need to get to a level playing field as quickly as possible, otherwise it adds relatively nothing. A small category may pass up a product that scores poorly on earning power, but most consumers opt for the lowest price."
According to him, insight into the market is always good, but it is even more important to 'apply the same standards for what comes in from outside the European Union and between the Member States themselves'. "GMO soya comes from America, which competes with soya here. You also see it with battery cage eggs that are no longer allowed to be produced here, but do come from other countries. Even more important than there being transparency in the market, is a level playing field ."
'Level playing field of great importance'
Linda Verriet, chairman of POV, also mentions a level playing field as an important factor for the revenue model of agricultural entrepreneurs. "We operate in a European and competitive market. Level playing field is very important to give farmers a fair competitive position. The market then moves and must lead. If there is more demand, production will follow automatically. In addition, consumers' purchasing behavior could be controlled to some extent by informing him/her in an honest and simple way about the sustainability of the product."
"In the Netherlands we would make a big step if we gave farmers a say in chains," says the POV chairman. "Join us at the table about price agreements, risk sharing and further sustainability. In addition, it is important that we stop recording everything in laws and regulations. This makes entrepreneurship and market forces impossible. With all the associated social, societal and economic consequences. We must move from means to goal management. The government indicates what the product must meet and leaves it to other entrepreneurs how they will achieve this."
As far as the quality mark is concerned, Verriet thinks that it can make more of a difference in France than in the Netherlands. "Studies show that French consumers find fair pay very important, more important than the environment and climate. In the Netherlands, purchasing power is under pressure. We see that more and more people are struggling to make ends meet. Healthy, safe and affordable food for everyone is a shared responsibility. There is a group that is willing to spend more on food, but the reality is that consumers also like to choose cheap, healthy and tasty food."
'There is a good chance that the reward score will overshoot the target'
Director of the Dutch Dairy Organization Joep Rats indicates that the NZO stands for 'good earning capacity for the farmer and therefore a good market price and compensation for services'. "That is good for the farmer and certainly also in the interest of dairy producers because everyone benefits from a healthy chain."
"We would like consumers to consider and appreciate several factors when purchasing a product, such as health, sustainability, animal welfare, quality, working conditions, etc. and of course a healthy chain and therefore good earning power for the farmer." Rats doubts whether this will be achieved by the Rémunéra score. "Experience shows that consumers find this difficult to assess and a score on consumer packaging for one of the elements or even multiple scores often leads to confusion and then the price becomes dominant again. There is a very good chance that this Nutri -Score method will overshoot the target. We are therefore very interested in the experiment and what can be learned from it."
Linda van Eekeres
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