They are a hundred: farmers and farmers to express their opposition to the Toulouse-Castres motorway project in an open letter, while the environmental public inquiry has just ended with more than 6,000 opinions issued. One of them agreed to share his arguments with us.
Michel Costadau is an organic farmer in Algans in the Tarn. He is one of the hundred or so farmers who signed an open letter to the investigating commissioner concerning the Toulouse-Castres motorway project. With his peers, he believes that this “spiral of artificialization” is “contrary to the State’s commitments claiming to protect agricultural land and promote its transmission to young farmers”.
France 3: why join together and manifest together by this letter your refusal of this motorway project?
Michel Costadau: Originally, this is the position of a certain number of elected officials, in particular a letter from Messrs. Terlier, Bonnecarrère and Folliot who mentioned that the agricultural profession was for the highway and that no one was opposed to that. Fortunately, we have a lot of contacts and we realized that many farmers or agricultural project leaders were not at all happy. On the contrary.
A colleague agreed to go around and collect signatures. The initiative snowballed. In the end, we collected a hundred signatures on a text that essentially says: the earth is there to feed people rather than being concreted. For us, the profession is not at all unanimous. There are lots of farmers who are against this project.
France 3: Why are you hostile to this project?
Michel Costadau: the first reason is that there is an existing route that has not been developed or improved while the plan was to do so. You remember, it’s a 1994 project in which it was necessary to connect Toulouse and Mazamet with a multitude of 2×2 lane portions. This project was adopted by the department in 94 but for political reasons, Castres not knowing very well where to pass the penetrating or how to avoid the city, it took time.
Fin the end, in all and for all, only the bypass of Puylaurens was done. There hasn’t really been any improvement in the route and that’s left us wondering because it’s THE solution!
In addition, you have to go as far as Mazamet… The Mazametains do not necessarily realize that if there is the motorway as far as Castres, they will be forgotten. People, rather than going to Mazamet, which is 40 km away, would probably go to Castres.
France 3: Beyond this argument, you say in this letter “too many actions and announcements by public decision-makers contribute to ever more land grabbing and artificialization of fertile land or biodiversity refuges, and disorganization farms. That is to say the ignorance and the total lack of consideration for the foundations of agriculture “…
Michel Costadau: Quite honestly, the motorway project would have been done in the years 2000-2005, it was okay. The environmental question was not at that time so exacerbated… We had not experienced the episodes of confinement and the climate crisis did not seem to be at this critical point.
It’s too late today: we no longer have the right to sacrifice the climate to the comfort of the economy! So we have to think about this project differently. As the authorities themselves say, it is anachronistic. It does not correspond to France’s commitments in the climate crisis. He is next to the plate. Moreover, we have a legal episode that will begin in a month, during which the court will surely side with our arguments.
Today, we have legal texts that are against this kind of project and elected officials are wrong: France is not committed to continuing its motorway networks, on the contrary.
France 3: On the agricultural level, do you see the nuisances?
Michel Costadau: lhe development of the road would put a lot of places on 2×2 lanes, which represents a few tens of hectares since it is a question of sticking roads to existing roads. Whereas with this motorway project, we are on 400 to 500 hectares artificialized.
The paradox is that it was not the farmers who mobilized at the start. But we see that the earth is “eaten” by concrete, photovoltaics, real estate projects so we have to stop that. The Climate and Resilience Law is positioned against, for 0% land take. That’s going in the right direction. The earth must be kept in order to cultivate it.
I have always been in organic farming, but I see that the agricultural profession does not serve agriculture at the moment. We have conflicts with the SAFER on the current policy of excessive expansion. It basically makes the peasants disappear and prevents young people from settling down. Besides, if we see them setting up as market gardeners, it’s not by choice for many, it’s because one hectare is enough to do market gardening. This is the only way for them to settle by acquiring a minimum of land.
France 3: Do you personally think that this highway would sacrifice land?
Michel Costadau : Completely ! There is the environmental aspect: wetlands with protected species. That’s the more ecological question, but the agricultural fiber means that the land is a working tool. But it is mistreated at the moment, it is this land that I seek to defend. OThere’s no reason to pave the way, it doesn’t make sense, it no longer makes sense.
There are other priorities. We see it today with the debate on agrivoltaism in which money is also a powerful instrument. People are promised huge amounts of money if they install photovoltaic panels on their land. We’re going to make sure it’s a bit profitable from an agricultural point of view, we can mow for example, but it’s the same question of the artificialization of the land.
Anaerobic digestion also poses this type of problem… When you see on trucks “I drive with rapeseed”, it’s a shame! There are entire fields which, instead of going to food, go to methanizers to make gas or ethanol. We derail! That a factory makes it okay, but not with raw material that comes from the earth.
To come back to the motorway, we are for France’s self-sufficiency. It does not have to export cereals or oils in a pinch. On the contrary, it has to feed its population and if almost all the countries in the world have this policy, the agricultural problem will be somewhat resolved, so that there is no longer this notion of a market which imposes transport in industrial quantities from one end of the world to the other.
These 500 hectares, it is estimated that they must feed people. theTarn elected officials are really below everything, that is to say that instead of defending the population, they seek their re-election by voting for projects that end up being deadly. But they don’t care at all.
France 3: do you think you will succeed?
Michel Costadau : the future is bleak for this project. They try to force their way through, to make people believe in the adhesion of the population. This is the reason why we made this specifically agricultural petition. We meet opponents but also people whose first feeling is helplessness, but that does not mean that they are for it.
We are a loosely organized collective but which has ideas, which has motivated people, which has educated people even on a scientific level so we are able to counter a lot of arguments. The battle will be long but this highway will never see the light of day. Whether we are talking about ZAD, trials or demonstrations… the ground will be mined.
We may even be led to mobilize people in a slightly more effective way. We are ready for that so that we come out of it from the top, that is to say that the project leaders, the elected officials develop the existing road with a penetrating one for Castres. It’s not very clear yet because the solution they have chosen is to the detriment of Mazamet. We are not the public authorities, but we think we have to change our minds and we will do everything for that.
