A farmer in a beet field.

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Josef Vostarek / AP / SIPA

The temporary exemptions planned by France to allow its farmers to reuse neonicotinoid insecticides, harmful to bees, will be "reserved" for the cultivation of beet and cannot be extended to other crops, the government assured Wednesday.

The bill, presented Thursday in the Council of Ministers despite the opposition of environmentalists and beekeepers, is based on article 53 of the European regulation on phytosanitary products allowing to derogate from the ban on certain products when there is a “Danger which cannot be controlled by other reasonable means”.

46,000 people employed in the sugar industry

Here the danger identified is "beet yellows", transmitted by a green aphid vector of the virus, which develops on crops whose seeds have not been coated with this insecticide beforehand.

The resulting drop in yields threatens the sustainability of the French sugar industry, which employs 46,000 people, many of them in processing plants, estimates the profession.

Following the 2016 biodiversity law, France is the only EU country to have implemented a total ban on neonicotinoids in September 2018.

Twelve other European beet-producing countries have requested and obtained exemptions that preserve their yields and their sugar industry, including Belgium, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Spain and Poland.

A new decree each year

From a government source, it is specified that the re-authorization, valid for 2021, 2022 and 2023, will be subject to an order taken each year by the Ministries of Agriculture and the Environment.

Maine-et-Loire deputy Matthieu Orphelin, judging the project "unacceptable", regretted in a press release that in its current wording, the text does not explicitly mention sugar beet and "leaves the door open to future others. derogations ”.

At the beginning of August, the corn producers had indeed clearly indicated that they too wished to benefit from a derogation.

The bill refers to a generic European text and cannot mention any particular crop, but the decree that will follow will be specifically focused on beets, a government source replied.

Beet yellows are linked to a winter and a too mild spring which allowed the proliferation of aphids.

It mainly affects the southern areas of cultivation, where the rate can go up to 80%, while in the north, the most affected plots are only 15%, said the government source.

According to the government, "the facts do not allow neither to affirm nor to demonstrate" that the disease affects more conventional crops than organic, as affirmed by environmental associations, in particular because of the too small organic surfaces (0 , 5% of total plantations) and the heterogeneity of the territory.

"Even though organic crops show more resistance to this disease, it cannot be a short-term response to jaundice, as the transition of farmers to organic takes a long time," the source stressed. government.

Génération Ecologie predicts "monstrous" consequences

The temporary re-authorization will be accompanied by a series of measures to regulate it, in particular a budget of 5 million euros to accelerate the search for agronomic solutions to avoid neonicotinoids, a compensation scheme for affected farmers, and the establishment by the end of the year of a pollinator protection plan.

The Generation Ecology party (GE) launched a campaign on Wednesday against this bill, taken according to its president and former Minister of Ecology Delphine Batho, "under the pressure of the sugar industry lobbies" and whose consequences are “Monstrous” for “the environment”, “insects, birds and all living things”.

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