Cherry growers are very annoyed despite the beautiful days that announce good harvests. In effect, European 1 relayed information from theAFP Thursday, July 6, 2023 that about fifteen producers had unloaded a ton of damaged cherries in front of the sub-prefecture of Tournon-sur-Rhône. Their fruits would be inedible because of the attacks of Drosophila suzukii, a midge against which they have not been able to fight since a certain insecticide has been prohibited to them. Benoît Nodin, secretary general of the majority union FDSEA in Ardèche revealed: “The situation is becoming unmanageable for the producers. The idea is to alert the government, to say: ‘set up the backup plan you have planned […]’give us solutions”. Indeed, cherry growers are waiting “a dignified and effective solution that allows people to live [leur] production”. Benoît Nodin mentioned “30 to 40% loss compared to what is on cherry trees”. For its part, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that it was mobilizing “to assess and document losses” in order to study “the support, of any kind, that it could provide”.
“We are tired, in a permanent state of stress”
The midge that harms the cherries of our French producers can be eradicated with phosmet. But the molecule of this pesticide has serious health consequences. At the beginning of 2022, the European Commission had refused its approval due to “unacceptable risks for operators, workers, passers-by and residents”, but also “for consumers”. While farmers have tried many repellents to harm the parasite, the president of the Young Farmers of Ardèche said that “clearly it doesn’t work”. Benoît Nodin is well aware that one of the solutions could be “the sterile insect technique”, which consists in raising male mosquitoes in laboratories, sterilizing them and then releasing them in the field. They could sterilize wild females so they don’t have offspring. But the secretary general of the majority union FDSEA in Ardèche revealed that this decision “requires two more years of experimentation”. Very supportive of the farmers of his union, he shared the ordeal they are going through: “in the morning, we get up at 5 a.m. to pick the fresh fruit. During the day, we do the work of sorting, shipping and in the evening, we take care of the sanitary facilities in our orchards. We are tired, in a permanent state of stress. Olivier Curel, of the FDSEA of Vaucluse, flatly denounced “from non-assistance to a profession in danger” and asked “tools that work for […] work calmly”.