Coronavirus: French farm producers suffering from COVID-19 restrictions

　Coronavirus: French farm producers suffering from COVID-19 restrictions

　　In this edition of Unreported Europe, we dig deep into the fears of French farmers, as the Covid-19 pandemic leaves them facing manpower shortages and severely disrupted supply chains.

　　The local markets that are so much a part of life in many parts of Europe are now closed because of the coronavirus, while borders have been closed to the seasonal workers who normally fill the fields.

　　Fresh Produce

　　In the village of Cailloux- Sur- Fontaines, near Lyon, we meet Mickael Bourguignon, who runs his family business on a 120-hectare farm. Bourguignon's grandfather started the farm with just hens, but in 1981 they switched to growing vegetables, and now sell to supermarkets as far away as Marseille.

　　Bourguignon depends on farmhands from Poland to work the land, and when European borders were closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, he suddenly lacked staff.

　　In early April the European Commission called upon member states to facilitate the travel of seasonal farmhands between countries, as this shortfall in staffing began to hit growers across western Europe. But this farmer told Euronews he hadn't seen any difference since that move.

　　"Right now, we don't feel the benefits of the open borders for seasonal workers," said Mickael Bourguignon. "Maybe this will change in a few weeks' time. But our situation is problematic for today. We suffer from lack of manpower and we do not have seasonal workers who can come to work."

　　Dorota Fuks is a Polish farm worker at Bourguignon's farm and she said they'll need more people to help.

　　"Later on in the year, we will need many more people to work here. The harvest season has just started. Usually, we need around 30 to 35 people. Today, we have just 15 people and more hands will be needed," she said.

　　These labourers are housed in mobile homes, and today some of them are unable to return home because they arrived before the COVID-19 outbreak, while others are still in Poland, unable to travel to France.

　　The French government called on the local unemployed population to help out.

　　Dimitri Angelin, 25, is one of them. Usually, he cooks at an upmarket Lyon restaurant, but it's closed due to the pandemic.

　　"I told myself, instead of staying at home just letting the time pass by, I could do something else," Angelin told Euronews. "I can also top up my unemployment pay with the money I receive for my farm work here."

　　Boosting unemployment benefit income by helping farmers is perfectly legal. It's one of the schemes put in place to avoid a collapse of the food production process.

　　But Bourguignon is still worried. He has spinach, corn, onions and lettuces that will need looking after and then harvesting.

　　"Today," Bourguignon explains, "I have one hectare of lettuce ready to cut. But if the farmer's markets don't change, it's almost certain that I will have to destroy them. Therefore I am asking the French State to lower our charges or even to cancel all of them, at least during this period - which is difficult."