Sharply criticized for the "pause" announced on the pesticide reduction plan, the government defends the idea of "getting away from punitive ecology", but its opponents denounce a break with the "ecological five-year term" promised by Emmanuel Macron.
After two weeks of agricultural rebellion, the executive put an end to the movement at the cost of numerous concessions. Particularly on the 4th Ecophyto plan which set a target of 50% reduction in the use of pesticides by 2030 (compared to 2015-2017) and which the government decided on Thursday to "pause".
A “shutdown” justified by the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, “time to put in place a new indicator” to measure the use of pesticides in fields and orchards.
Elected environmentalists immediately denounced an “unacceptable” and “dramatic” setback, while environmental NGOs expressed concern about a “retrograde” decision when the protection of biodiversity and the health of farmers are at stake.
“Agriculture of the previous century kept ever more dangerous products”
“We will reject any participation in a new Ecophyto dynamic whose indicator would be biased,” Générations Futures immediately responded.
“The Nodu [monitoring indicator of the national plan for the reduction of phytopharmaceutical products] allowed us to see that France has not met its objectives for almost 15 years: 15 years of failure to pause, that raises questions ", also wonders Thomas Uthayakumar, from the Foundation for Nature and Man, to AFP.
“What Gabriel Attal is proposing to us today completely contradicts the national strategies” of decarbonization (SNBC), food (SNANC) or agricultural planning (PLOA), he regrets.
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This official, however, welcomes the government's determination to oppose the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay), to obtain reciprocity of standards and to enforce the Egalim law, to protect the farmers' remuneration.
“Today the FNSEA has won, but it will not bring anything to agricultural income, not a cent” and “it will allow us to continue the agriculture of the previous century by keeping ever more dangerous products on the market and by delaying their withdrawal in a cynical manner,” added Générations Futures spokesperson François Veillerette for AFP.
"Justice decision"
“This is a major political error because if the question of agricultural income is a real question for a certain number of farmers, it is not by sacrificing the environment and natural resources that we will resolve this problem , quite the contrary,” he continued.
This “pause” is announced while the State has until June 30, 2024 to better respect its trajectories of reducing the use of pesticides and protect waters, by order of administrative justice.
“This announcement is therefore also a refusal to comply with a court decision,” criticized the NGO Pollinis, one of the five associations behind this legal procedure, “Justice for the Living”, to AFP.
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Over the past 30 years, populations of field birds have fallen by 30% in France, according to studies which indicate that the intensification of agriculture is the main cause of this decline.
For the WWF too, this pause is “a disastrous signal”. “Chemical pollution is one of the main factors responsible for the decline of animal and plant biodiversity, at the same level as climate change,” adds Jean Burkard, from WWF France.
Protecting the health of farmers
“Certainly it is better to suspend than to have a cheap strategy,” notes Sandrine Bélier, director of the NGO Humanity and Biodiversity, contacted by AFP. “But Ecophyto is the main plan which supports farmers in their economic transition”, via the 41 million euros distributed by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) for research, experimentation, etc.
“Challenging this mechanism means giving up supporting farmers in their ecological transitions,” she warns.
“The issue is the protection of biodiversity but also the health of farmers who are the first victims of the phytosanitary products they use,” she recalls.
With AFP
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