Biarritz (AFP)
Reauthorizing a banned insecticide to preserve sugar beet, threatened by the jaundice virus, was "a difficult decision to take", but in the absence of a solution within six months, "there will be no more sugar industry. in France, "Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili warned on Wednesday.
"The law has not yet passed, I am very attentive to any proposal so that we can avoid this", assured the minister to the press in Biarritz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), during a visit dedicated to the launch of '' a national charter for beaches without plastic waste.
“Unfortunately, today we cannot, if we want to keep a sugar industry in France, act in a sustainable manner in such a short time,” she underlined. "Sowing will be done in six months, if we have not found a solution, they will not be done and therefore there will be no beets and there will be no more sugar industry in France".
The government announced Thursday that it is aiming for a legislative change in the fall to allow farmers to use from 2021 and until 2023 maximum, under "strict conditions", beet seeds coated with an insecticide banned since 2018, in order to "perpetuate" the French sugar industry, despite the opposition of beekeepers and environmentalists.
"The solutions so that we no longer have to use neonicotinoids are starting to appear, but these are solutions that take time," according to Ms. Pompili. She said "bitterly regret" that "there were not enough clear measures" to enforce the 2016 bioversity law banning neonicotinoids, which attack the nervous system of insects, including bees.
"As there has not been enough research, enough alternatives, today we are in the wall", she explained. "Me, I want us to say: + we close the sweets in France, why not +? The choice that was made was to keep these sweets. In order for us to have beets, we have to in plant ".
She assured that the decision to waive the use of certain insecticides is "very restrictive, we are only talking about beets, if we have a mild winter, we are talking about time limitation, that is to say that we speaks once, renewable twice, but I can tell you that it will be as difficult as possible ". "I don't want anyone to believe it's not dangerous," she said.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there was an urgent need to act on beet yellows to save the sector which in France, the leading European sugar producer, concerns 46,000 jobs.
© 2020 AFP