Bordeaux (AFP)
A study of unprecedented scale aimed at establishing an "objective photograph" of the risks of exposure to pesticides of residents of wine-growing estates was launched on Tuesday but the inter-profession of Bordeaux wines refuses to join it, fearing "conclusions hasty ".
With "PestiRiv", the National Health Security Agency (ANSES) and Public Health France (SpF) will follow until August some 3,350 voluntary participants aged 3 to 79, spread over 250 study areas spread over six regions.
They reside either in wine-growing areas (less than 500 meters of vines and more than 1,000 meters of other crops) or more than 1,000 meters from any crop, in order to facilitate comparisons, and will in particular be monitored. biological (urine or hair samples, etc.) and environmental (ambient air sensors, samples of water or vegetables from the kitchen garden, etc.).
For Jean-Luc Volatier, of the risk assessment department of ANSES, viticulture is particularly concerned because it consists of "perennial crops with relatively high treatment frequencies and a strong interweaving between habitat and vines".
"About fifty substances will be measured," said Atmo France, which takes part in the surveys.
"This is the first study which will make it possible to compare the actual level of exposure of the population (...) to all possible sources of exposure: air, food, water, professional activity including agricultural uses, and domestic uses ".
The results of analyzes of several million samples are expected in 2024 and should allow "to objectify if there is overexposure" of local residents and to "understand why and how, in order to give all the levers to act", a underlined Ohri Yamada, head of phytopharmacovigilance at ANSES.
The environmental association Future Generations, which published in March a ranking of the departments most greedy in pesticides, with two vitivinicultural departments at the head (Gironde and Marne), "welcomed" Tuesday the launch of PestiRiv but regretted the "lost time" .
By emphasizing their "scientific rigor", the study organizers wish to guard against criticism on a very sensitive subject which has already led to trials, even physical tensions, in certain regions.
"Major bias"
PestiRiv is particularly grinding in the Bordeaux region. The interprofession has indicated, in a letter from its president to the prefect, dated October 1, revealed by Le Monde and of which AFP was aware, that it "will not support this process, nor with companies vineyards in the Gironde, nor with the mayors of the municipalities concerned ", unless Public Health France and ANSES reassure her on several points.
The Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wines (CIVB) regrets, among other things, a "lack of transparency" on the feedback from an experimental phase carried out in 2019 in New Aquitaine as well as "the disparity in the location of samples, with more half of the study that would take place in Gironde ". He sees "this focus on the Bordeaux vineyard" as "a major bias in the protocol" and "does not want Bordeaux to once again be the shield behind which other French vineyards can take shelter".
The CIVB is also not "convinced" that SpF and ANSES, "once the analysis and dissemination work has been carried out, will make the educational and contradictory effort necessary to avoid hasty conclusions and ignoring all scientific rigor ".
A position that Béatrice de François, the PS mayor of Parempuyre (Gironde), at the gates of the Médoc, does not understand.
"It's a shame that they (the CIVB) are stepping in like this, they would have every interest in supporting this study and the change in practices", explains to AFP this mayor, who had issued an order in 2019 banning phytopharmaceutical products "within 100 m of any dwelling or public space", annulled by administrative justice.
According to Ms. de François, who recalls that pesticides do not only concern viticulture but agriculture in general, "a real neutral scientific study" like PestiRiv, "over a somewhat long period, on children and adults", will be "interesting".
© 2021 AFP