A “sleight of hand” which “goes against history”: environmental NGOs castigated on Wednesday the abandonment of the French indicator for measuring the use of pesticides, Nodu, demonstrating “disappointment” and “incomprehension” in the face of the government’s “contradictory” announcements. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Wednesday that France was renouncing Nodu, the indicator previously used to measure the reduction in the use of pesticides, strongly contested by the majority agricultural union FNSEA and the pesticide industry.
European HRI-1 indicator
It is now the European indicator HRI-1 (“harmonized risk indicator”) which will serve as a reference, the government judging that it takes more into account the notion of health risk of pesticides and not just the quantities used, and above all that it will allow European comparisons. But NGOs believe that this indicator does not sufficiently discriminate between pesticides according to their levels of danger, with very diverse products finding themselves classified in the same category. Gabriel Attal, however, affirmed that he did not want to “give up on (the) ambition to reduce the use of pesticides by 50% by 2030”.
“It will be difficult to follow the ambition to reduce the use of pesticides by 50% if we remove the only tool allowing them to measure their use,” lamented Sandrine Bélier of the Humanity and Biodiversity association to AFP. . “Calling into question Nodu is indirectly calling into question the Ecophyto plan, and it is a renunciation of a French ambition that is more protective of the health of citizens and farmers,” she said. “This decision clearly goes against history,” lamented Thomas Uthayakumar, director of advocacy for the Foundation for Nature and Man (FNH, formerly the Nicolas Hulot Foundation). “This clearly goes against all the recommendations. Changing the thermometer is not the solution,” he added.
“Stroke of force”
According to its calculations and those of the Générations futures association, the adoption of a new indicator completely distorts the data. “With HRI-1, we see a reduction of almost 33% in pesticides, while with Nodu we see an increase of 3%, it’s not at all the same thing!”, explains Thomas Uthayakumar. For Future Generations, we are witnessing a “coup de force” by the government to “put in place a totally misleading indicator which will present an image of artificial reduction” of pesticides.
It is “a total repudiation” of the Ecophyto plan and a “real sleight of hand which will put a stop to any dynamic in terms of change towards agroecological production systems”, criticizes the association. Nodu “was the only effective long-term tool allowing us to measure our progress” in terms of reducing pesticides, underlines Cédric Marteau, general director of the League for the Protection of Birds. “Giving up on it is an attempt to hide reality and a real step backwards. The general interest does not come out any better.”