France prepares for pesticide losses

French farming organisations are gearing themselves up to a future without pesticides, under the national action plan, Ecophyto 2+, which challenges the industry to cut pesticide use by 50 per cent by 2025.

Agriculture minister Didier Guillaume, who has also previously announced that most of the approved uses of glyphosate will be removed in France by 2020, told a gathering of farming journalists in Paris: “There’s no right way to ban pesticides. The transition can’t come overnight, but the industry must be prepared for the end of plant protection products.”

Solutions

Eric Therouin, chairman of cereal producers’ association AGPB said that the message from the industry is that there must be no ban without solutions.

“We want to take on an agro-ecological transition but also to stop the spiral of constraint on production inputs – if crop protection products are to be withdrawn at European level there must be alternatives. We have already lost some valuable products as a result of French legislation.”

He added that the farming industry will commit to reduce pesticides only if viable and cost-effective solutions are found, and that this message has been clearly communicated to President Macron, the Ministry of Agriculture and national research organisations.

Products

Crop protection trade body UIPP represents manufacturers of products for all farms including organic and comprises 19 members from multinational size downwards, covering 95 per cent of the French market. Some members produce organic solutions and bio-control products as well as agrochemicals.

“Some 30-40 products will be lost without intervention,” said director, Eugenia Pommaret.

“Yet we are faced with 100,000 different bio-aggressors (pests, weeds and diseases); seven new insects arrive in France each year, and the change in weather conditions means that new threats to plant health progress more quickly.”