Finance bill | Why is the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture increasing by 20% in 2023?

On the occasion of the presentation of finance bill 2023yesterday in the Council of Ministers, the ministry of agriculture was granted a budget of 5,987 million euros, up 20% compared to the budget included in the 2022 finance bill.

How to explain this significant budget increase?

Nearly 6 billion euros will be devoted in 2023 to our agriculture. This 20% increase compared to the previous budget is a sign of our commitment and our determination to act for the benefit of our farmers and for our food sovereignty. pic.twitter.com/pQsBSbYVoc

— Marc Fesneau (@MFesneau) September 26, 2022

Entry into force of the new crop insurance system

First of all, the 2023 budget is marked by the entry into force of the new crop insurance system. A reform that results in the introduction of 256 million euros in credits to the Ministry of Agriculture, to which are added 184.5 million euros from the EAFRD and 120 million euros in revenue from the tax allocated to the national agricultural risk management fund (compared to 60 million euros previously). That is a total budget of 560 million euros for 2023.

” It is above all a subject of amending finance law, we will know the real amount at the end of 2023, the idea being to have a gradual trajectory to reach the budget of 600 million euros in 2025 “, we say to the cabinet of Marc Fesneau.

PSN implementation

Another line of additional expenditure announced: this concerns the implementation of the next programming of the Pac following the validation of national strategic plan (PSN), which, for example, provides for a drop in co-financing from 75 to 65% of the ICHN (natural disability allowance) that the French State would compensate up to 107 million euros.

Integration of Tode financing

The third increase in the rue de Varenne budget is due to the integration of the entire financing of the load relief device said Tode dedicated to seasonal workerswhose sustainability had been announced by Emmanuel Macron at the last agricultural show.

134 million will be devoted in 2023 to the scheme for exemption from employer contributions for occasional workers (Tode), i.e. an increase of 3% compared to LFI 2022. To this sum will be added a budgetary envelope of 427 million euros, corresponding to the allocation of a fraction of VAT for the benefit of Unedic and the MSA which was previously operated.

” The extension of this exemption is essential to sectors employing seasonal laborwhere the cost of labor is an important issue of competitiveness “, notes the Ministry of Agriculture.

More resources for health safety and agricultural education

Other lines contribute to the increase in the ministry’s budget. We can cite for example:

• The increase in resources health security by 7% to 655 million euros for the implementation of the animal health law (LSA) and capacity building for disaster response health crisis.
• The increase in resources granted toteaching and researchexcluding staff costs, by 4% to 699 million euros, which includes an increase of 7.1 million euros in the resources of theagricultural higher education in the face of the increase in its workforce, and an increase of 16 million euros in resources dedicated toagricultural technical education in particular for the reception of students with disabilities
• An envelope of 16.5 million additional euros dedicated to the ministry’s IT projects.
• A budget of 19 million euros dedicated to supporting the sugar sector in the overseas territories
• An increase in appropriations intended for the forest policy of 4%

Increase in the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture

These budget increases are accompanied by an increase in the workforce of 158 full-time equivalents worked compared to 2022 out of a total of nearly 30,000 jobs. This increase in staff is broken down as follows:

• 15 additional FTEs for theagricultural technical education by strengthening the medico-social teams of public establishments
• 8 more FTEs in theagricultural higher education with the rise in power of the promotions of veterinary schools
• 90 more FTEs for the health security plants, animals and food, to which are added 60 FTEs transferred from the DGCCRF with the establishment of the single health policy under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture.
• 36 additional FTEs for Ministry of Agriculture support functions

More than 23 billion in total for agriculture

The Ministry of Agriculture points out that to its budget of nearly 6 billion euros, we must add 250 million euros from the Recovery planmore than 9 billion euros of European funding and 8.5 billion euros of social and tax systems to arrive at a total budget of more than 23.3 billion euros in France for agriculture and agri-food.