- In April 2018, Nicolas Puech, a beekeeper in Haute-Garonne, lost two million bees after the spreading of a fungicide in a nearby field.
- Justice has just condemned the farmer and recognized the spraying of Voxan as "exclusive cause of mortality".
- Nicolas Puech, who has created an association to help other beekeepers, hopes that this kind of decision will have an impact on the approval of phytosanitary products.
At the end of April 2018, Nicolas Puech, a beekeeper in the Haute-Garonne, discovered his 24 bee colonies, i.e. more than two million foragers, who were struck down. A few days earlier, the farmer, who wanted to pollinate his rapeseed field and asked him to move his "organic" hives in Ariège, had treated a neighboring field with a fungicide.
After two years of proceedings, the courts have just recognized that the bees had indeed been victims of poisoning due to the spreading of a fungicide. "It has been shown that the exclusive cause of death (...) is indeed acute poisoning following the spraying of Voxan," said the judgment rendered by the Foix court at the beginning of the month.
A great victory for the Bees 🐝 the court recognized the intoxication of our Bees and the dangerousness of Voxan for the Bees 👍
Soon we will tell you everything about everything in video 😉 # biodiversite #abeilles #pesticide #beekeeper #apiculture #pyrenees #nature pic.twitter.com/J9Ff8hgEYv
At the time an appraisal had proven the intoxication and thanks to the mobilization of many citizens he had been able to "put in the public square" his case and go to court. “It was an accident, the farmer applied the product legally and was in good faith, he was even very affected by this case. We would have preferred an amicable compensation but that is not what his insurance wanted ”, still deplores today Nicolas Puech who will receive 3,700 euros in damages for the loss of his hives.
Since then, Voxan has been banned from sale and its application is prohibited from July 31.
"A real environmental poison"
“For us, what is important is that this product has been recognized as harmful by the courts, because when the bees died, we started to be told that our hives were poorly maintained. The association that we created has acquired a methodology and we want to help beekeepers who would also be victims of intoxication, "explains the manager of Natur Miel, for whom" it is a shame to divide the agricultural world ". The latter wants above all to alert on the problem of pesticides, "a real environmental poison".
His association has already been approached several times by beekeepers and new procedures could emerge. Products applied to scare away flies on sheep flocks have also decimated quite a few bee herds in recent years. This "endless fight" to denounce the impact of phytosanitary products, Nicolas Puech hopes that it will allow "people to be more attentive to approvals".
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