French farm health and environmental mutual fund (FMSE)
A French mutual fund, approved by the state in 2013, that compensates farmers for economic losses caused by animal disease, plant pests or an environmental incident, with public money reimbursing part of the payouts.
The FMSE is the mutual fund that compensates French farmers for economic losses caused by a regulated animal or plant disease, or by an environmental accident such as pollution. It is an association set up by the farming sector, approved by the state in 2013, and the only fund of its kind approved in France. Its legal basis is Article L. 361-3 of the Rural Code; EU law now frames it under Article 76 of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115. Every farmer pays 20 euros a year to the common section, a mandatory contribution collected by the MSA, the farm social security agency. Sector sections charge their own contribution on top: three at launch, twelve by 2019. When a compensation program opens, the fund pays the farmers, then claims public reimbursement, from the EU and the state, for part of the payouts. That rate is capped at 70% under the current framework. What the fund covers: lost production, extra cleaning and disinfection costs, mandatory downtime, dead animals the state does not compensate. The state covers the value of animals culled by order. For an underwriter, the FMSE marks the edge of the private market. Business interruption after a sanitary cull falls to it first, and a private epizootic policy only sits alongside as a complement. The avian influenza waves of 2016 to 2022 in southwestern France tested its capacity: payouts exceeded the poultry section's contributions, and reliance on public money was heavy. Not to be confused with the FNGRA, the public fund that finances part of its reimbursements.
Textbook case: a 30,000-duck farm in the Landes falls inside an avian influenza restricted zone and must stay empty for twelve weeks. The state compensates the culled birds. The lost margin, 90,000 euros on the program's scale, goes through the FMSE poultry section, which pays part of it and recovers up to 70% from public funds.
FMSE, French animal and plant health mutual fund, farm health mutual fund France, agricultural mutual fund France
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