France’s first vegetable cooperative, the Saint Pol-de-Léon Sica in the Finistère region registered a 15% decrease in turnover in 2014 to €185 million. This is a “terrible year” mainly due to bad weather conditions and the Russian embargo on food products.
“We have rarely had such a difficult year” says President of the cooperative, Jean-Francois Jaco. The cooperative noted a 34% decrease in their cabbage (which is their main production) turnover to €31.4. Potato turnover plummeted 60% to €1.5 million and shallots by 76% to €4.4 million. Overall, their vegetable range recorded a 22% decrease to €112.4 million.
Traditional shallot producers suffer from what they call unfair competition from seed grown onions that are marketed as shallots.
Last September the government had promised help for the Breton farmers who were seeing a prices collapse, notably linked to the Russian embargo. “The measures announced on the 24th September were not respected” regrets Jean-Francois Jacob.
The Sica has 120 employees, about 1,500 farms and 1,200 member producers.