agricultural crisis of milk and meat in France: what works?

[chatelot16]

Yes Ahmed, a good selling price is a sale price that satisfies as much the seller as the buyer!

But this base price must be fixed by the "seller" in relation to his expenses (with negotiation margins within the acceptable limit) and not by the buyer ... but currently in French agriculture I It seems that it is the buyers (cooperative or large distribution) who have the negotiating margins in hand ... and not the sellers!

As you say, at the expense of smaller ... It's absolutely what happens!

cooperative? this is a big problem! the cooperative were invented to consolidate the farmer and give them the strength it takes to defend their interests ... unfortunately it has completely derailed! The cooperative is now the big company that have no purpose to defend the farmer and operate like any central purchase of supermarket

[Christophe]

Except cooperatives ... again cooperatives, ie kind managed by farmers themselves! Gender status SCOP: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A ... ticipative

This is still (or again?) But not on qu'Auchamps (hihihihi) or work with LeClair ...

ps: good interventions Did67!

[Did67]

In the agricultural sector, there are quite a few "big cooperatives" (Yoplait, for example, is the brand of SODIMA, a cooperative brand). Which are still, legally, cooperatives. One man, one voice. And everything and everything. Whether in milk or meat.

The problem, alas, is that once they have become "big units", they are subject to the laws of the market, like the private industrialist next door. Same technologies. Same end market (central purchasing offices), therefore same selling price ... So same buying price from the farmer.

There is enough to meditate on an econology antiphon: these "bad capitalists" who are the cause of all the evil. It's obviously a bit short. It is a system, a society where everyone prefers to buy Chinese food rather than paying for good food at the right price.

These "technostructures" escape democracy, which exists (one GA each year) but which becomes entirely theoretical. The cooperative members vote heavily on the decisions that the "management" submits to them ... There is a little Soviet side here. And we could dig why!

And thus we saw, in 80 years, during the first violent milk strike, cooperators to attack ... their cooperative and occupy!

One of the big "players" on the pork market in Brittany is, next to Charal, a Breton processing cooperative. Who speculates the prices of pork ... down. If they buy more, they no longer sell their products!

Cooperatives have an advantage: the profit is distributed. When there!

But we can see that this represents at best, with equal productivity, a few%. Not enough to solve the "crisis".

And in fact, the profits generally pass into a few "losses": where a private industrialist will not collect such and such a remote farmer, or such a small farmer with low volumes, the cooperative will. And that undermines the 3% margin ...

Today, we are witnessing a rebirth of the cooperative spirit in small local facilities, such collective stores where a producer group makes direct sales, all without having to be locked all day. That earlier, I called niche markets (for now). There, it is quite another thing if we grab the margins of all intermediaries, there were changes everything!

[Ahmed]

That producers are organized into cooperatives, scop or are shareholders, as you wish, chatelot, Will not change the ecosystem (so to speak!) In which all this will evolve and, as rightly said DidIs the group that is blocked.
As for the niche markets, of course, it is possible to "scratch" a few points by these tips which make it possible to distribute the shortage and to adapt to it for a while, but nothing which is likely to substantially change the situation.

A quote that seems quite enlightening of Robert Kurz taken from his book, "Life and death of capitalism":

"What '' collapses '' through the forms of development of the crisis, it is the ability of capital to reproduce socially. But that does not collapses of itself, it is the forms of conscience constituted by capital or '' objective forms of thought '' (Marx). Insofar as the historical limits of capitalism is reached, there arise a strong tension between the lack of opportunity to pursue the actual development and the general awareness that has internalized the capitalist conditions of existence which can not (or do wants) to imagine anything other than living in these forms. Our task difficult is to dissolve this tension in the resistance process in the management of the crisis, if we do not want that capitalism is completed by a global catastrophe '

[Did67]

... but nothing that is likely to substantially change the situation.

By definition a niche!

Except for a few Klebs who find refuge!

[Ahmed]

"Cultural" note: the words klebs and clébards have the same origin, the Arabic language. الكلب the dog, is pronounced el kelb and is read from right to left.
The viability of a niche is subject to that of the whole: the party does not last more than the whole. What complicates the analysis of the situation is that there are many prosperous sectors (out of reach of our farmers) who seem to contradict the general difficulties. Simply, the balance of power in the present economic environment make it exist agreements, which grant monopolies by these means a greater share of the pie at the expense of those who do not have the opportunity.