Members of the Young Farmers (JA) and the FDSEA (departmental federation of agricultural exploiters’ unions) drive tractors during a demonstration against the EU-Mercosur agreement in Auch on November 18, 2024. The rivalry between the main unions has been established for several months during various farmers’ mobilizations. The campaign for the agricultural chambers’ elections will officially begin on January 7 and end on January 30 at midnight all over France, except in Mayotte, where the vote will be postponed, the Ministry of Agriculture announced on December 27. During the fifteen days of voting elsewhere, farmers will be called upon to elect their professional representatives either by mail or electronically. “Provisions are being developed to postpone the holding of the vote in Mayotte,” the ministry added. On the archipelago devastated by Cyclone Chido, “the prefect announced to the leaders of the chamber of agriculture the postponement of the elections by one or two years,” Laurence Marandola, spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne, the third union, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The chamber of agriculture in Mayotte is the only one presided over by the Confédération paysanne (left-wing), in a union landscape largely dominated by the FNSEA-Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA) alliance, which holds 97 chambers. The second agricultural union, the Coordination rurale (more right-leaning), runs three chambers. One of the challenges of this election will be to see if the hegemony of the FNSEA-JA alliance, accused by other organizations of “co-management” with the state, will be challenged and to what extent. The FNSEA, the majority union in the agricultural world since its creation after the war, allied with JA, received 55% of the votes in 2019. Renewed every six years, the chambers of agriculture are made up of 33 members, including 18 farmers. A seat has now been added for a representative from the regional or departmental council. In case of a tie between two lists, the one with the youngest average age wins. However, there is no change in the voting system, which currently favors the majority union: the list that comes first gets half of the available seats (9 out of 18), the other half being distributed proportionally among all the lists.
In the street or among the operators, the unions have been engaged in fierce competition for months leading up to these elections, which have political and financial stakes: 75% of the 14 million euros allocated to the financing of unions are currently distributed according to the number of votes, and 25% according to the number of seats. The chambers of agriculture, public institutions, have the role of “improving the economic, social, and environmental performance” of the farms, according to the rural code. They provide advice and services to operators. There are 88 departmental or interdepartmental chambers and 13 regional chambers, overseen by a national structure representing agricultural interests to the authorities. Since their creation in 1924, they have been involved in the transformation of agriculture, working on implementing reforms, from land consolidation started in 1919 to mechanical and chemical revolution, to the support provided by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union.
