A vineyard in Luxembourg, September 28, 2023 (AFP/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)
Without glyphosate, “it’s a lot more work and energy”: in his vineyards, Luxembourger Roger Demuth had to abandon the controversial herbicide for two years, banned by the Grand Duchy and which remains shunned there despite its re-authorization last spring.
The Twenty-Seven will vote on October 13 on the Commission’s proposal to renew for ten years in the EU the authorization of this herbicide suspected of being carcinogenic but for which the European regulator has not identified any level of risk justifying the ban.
So far, Luxembourg is the only European country to have banned the marketing of glyphosate, from January 2021, before the courts of the Grand Duchy lifted this ban last April, deemed contrary to EU rules, which authorized it until December 2023.
For more than two years, however, Luxembourg farmers had to learn to do without it: this often required the acquisition of new machines for mechanical weeding, with increased working time and fuel costs — in total a cost multiplied by three.
Grape pickers work in a vineyard in Luxembourg, September 28, 2023 (AFP/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)
“You have to go with the tractors 5 or 6 times, if it’s a wetter year, so that the weeds don’t grow too high” between the vines, explains Roger Demuth, whose vines occupy steep slopes near the German border.
“To weed a hectare of vines with these rotating brushes, it easily takes 4 hours, compared to one hour with glyphosate (…) Without high-performance equipment, you can count twenty hours…”, confirms his winegrower neighbor Armand Schmit, whose two sons take on these new tasks. Their 14-hectare estate, however, switched to organic from the 2020 vintage.
Other winegrowers are now reusing the herbicide but claim to have changed their practices: “We try to use as little as possible,” insists Roger Demuth.
– “Brand image” –
A farmer plows his field in Luxembourg, September 28, 2023 (AFP/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)
Before the ban, Luxembourg consumed 13.6 tonnes of glyphosate per year. If the figures for 2023 are not known, its reauthorization has not led to a massive return to grace.
In fact, 80% of farms have concluded five-year “contracts” with the government, proposed in 2019 and which are still running, according to which they renounce glyphosate in exchange for subsidies (30 euros/hectare for arable land, 100 euros for arboriculture).
“This shows that the need for glyphosate was not so crucial in Luxembourg, where livestock farms dominate”, a situation different from the large French cereal regions for example, explains Christian Wester, dairy farmer and president of the majority union Centrale paysanne.
He himself, whose farm has 400 cattle and 200 hectares, half of which are forage crops, nevertheless refused such a contract, criticizing in unison with his union the ban on glyphosate imposed on farmers “without giving them a choice” .
He could again resort “if necessary” to this herbicide which “allows 6 hectares to be sprayed in one hour”, whereas to mechanically weed a field, by turning the earth with a plow and tractor, it takes up to an hour and a half per hectare.
Christian Wester, dairy farmer and president of the Centrale paysanne union, September 28, 2023 on his farm in Luxembourg (AFP/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)
“Some people reuse glyphosate, particularly on sloping land… From an economic point of view, no real alternative has been found, the subsidies proposed are not enough to deal with the additional cost,” he emphasizes, while alarmed to see glyphosate, “well known for 50 years”, replaced by “new products whose long-term effects have not been studied”.
He criticizes “the contradiction” between the ban on glyphosate, which requires turning over the land, and the encouragement to restrict plowing to improve soil health.
“The farmer no longer has many options,” he quips, even if organic growers and agronomists praise the existence of alternative techniques.
Luxembourg intends to reduce the use of the most dangerous phytosanitary products by 30% by 2025: a reduction of 26% was observed from 2021 by eliminating glyphosate, notes the Minister of Agriculture Claude Haagen.
For him, the reauthorization of the herbicide could compromise the intended objective, but a complete step backwards seems unlikely: “the operators see in practice that it was possible, and even beneficial for their brand image”, declares he told AFP, specifying that the Grand Duchy will continue to tighten its regulations governing the storage and use of these products.
Luxembourg will oppose the reauthorization of glyphosate proposed by Brussels, but the final decision will be taken by a qualified majority of the Twenty-Seven.
© 2023 AFP
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