The action is an initiative of the agricultural organizations Boerenforum (a movement of farmers pursuing agro-ecological practices) and the Walloon Fugea. They speak of “land grabbing” by Colruyt. A recent investigation by news website Apache revealed that Colruyt has bought over 175 hectares of agricultural land and pastures in recent years.
According to the activists, the group’s policy is causing great concern among farmers. In this way Colruyt would drive up prices. “I wanted to buy land that I was already cultivating, but Colruyt offered the owner four times the market price. It was impossible for me to match this”, testifies Nicolas, a young farmer from Hainaut who is a member of the board of Fugea.
Colruyt would also “avoid concluding career lease contracts with farmers and only draw up seasonal contracts with unknown conditions”, the agricultural organizations criticize.
In April, about 150 farmers took action at Colruyt’s headquarters in Halle. “The land is becoming scarce and unaffordable. We fear that it will only be possible to rent on temporary and expensive contracts from major players such as Colruyt, making it no longer feasible to continue farming,” said Wim Moyaert, coordinator of Boerenforum, at the time.
Colruyt said in a response that it is buying up the agricultural land, precisely with the intention of allowing it to remain agricultural land. “If agricultural land is sold on the real estate market, it often gets a different destination and no more farming can be done on it,” said Saskia De Block, responsible for agriculture at Colruyt. “Our intention is: farmland remains farmland.”
The supermarket chain also assured that it will not act “aggressively”.