Catherine Lascurettes spoke at the 2017 National Annual Congress of French dairy farmers’ union Federation Nationale des Producteurs Laitiers (FNPL) on the theme of “learning the lessons from the dairy crisis”.

My summary of a short stay in France last week was a demoralised French dairy farmer population, poorly served by both processors and retailers, ill-advised and ill-prepared for the volatile market environment.

The English word resilience has passed into French while I wasn’t looking. After nearly three years of low milk prices, too few French dairy farmers are sufficiently resilient to come out the other end unscathed.

Presenting the financial results from a representative sample of Breton dairy farms – probably among the most commercial and efficient in France – accountant Luc Mangelinck stated that basic costs of production in 2016 were around 30.5c/l, with an average price paid of 30.9c/l, but the breakeven cost, defined as including the remuneration of the farmer’s labour, would have required 40.1c/l. Starkest of all was his statement that, in 2016, the average income for that representative sample was just under €15,000. Without CAP aids, he said, farmers would have had negative incomes.

FNPL vice-president Marie-Therese Bonneau painted a very stark picture of dairy farming in France in 2016/17. Farmers have experienced massive income losses and cashflow stresses, many have had to restructure loans, few were able to make any new investment, and too many had to choose between borrowing to purchase inputs or equipment or to put food on the table.

Even farmers who are efficient and technically at top competence levels have experienced dire financial hardship. Many are deeply demoralised, some have simply ceased milking and sold their cows; mental health issues abound.

French Young Farmers’ president Jeremy Decerle, a suckler farmer from the Franche Comte region in eastern France, said: “Farmers tightened their belts like never before, they tried to adapt to the crisis, but that was not enough.”

The bulk of French dairy production is sold on the domestic retail market. Retailer negotiations with suppliers, while highly regulated to discourage unfair trade practices, are utterly ruthless.

The global dairy downturn was used by retailers to knock back wholesale prices, but the recovery of recent months has not been reflected in the prices passed back through the chain.

Farmer representatives from all over France at the congress were unimpressed by Commissioner Phil Hogan’s reminders of the 24 measures (including the extension of APS, intervention, state aid options, the EU production reduction scheme and many more) and €1.5bn expended in supporting the dairy sector since he came into office, immediately after the Russian ban came into force.

While the measures were important and helpful, it is difficult to blame the farmers for their scepticism: for two years, even the most efficient among them have been producing at a loss, while all the EU interventions have yet to help return them to a profitable price level.

Commissioner Hogan urged the FNPL and the other French dairy stakeholders to come back to him with concrete proposals on how better to support dairy farmers in the next CAP. The French ministry has also caused massive payment delays at the worst possible time for cashflow.

Not for the first time, I found in France real envy for the cohesiveness of the Irish dairy industry’s development project. A great deal of interest was expressed in some of the risk management strategies pioneered in Ireland, especially fixed milk price contracts. However, the French dairy chain has failed to date to offer similar opportunities of support for risk management. Other instruments developed in Ireland are also unavailable to farmers there, such as five-year income averaging with one-year step-back lobbied for by the IFA.

I was frankly shocked by the profound malaise among French dairy farmers. Farmers feel isolated, abandoned by once-willing financial institutions and their processing industry, starved of clear signals on volumes or prices which could help them plan, and let down by the lack of support initiatives.

It was hard to walk out of the congress without feeling real sympathy for French dairy farmers, the very backbone of a long and proud tradition of quality dairy products.

What is clear is that their representatives will fight hard in the CAP negotiations to deliver measures they believe will serve them best. To quote the words of FNPL and COPA milk group president, Aveyron dairy farmer Thierry Roquefeuil, to Commissioner Hogan: “You can’t have a France of 1,000 cheeses if you empty the French countryside of dairy farmers.”