In 2020, Elisabeth Borne walked the aisles of the Salon de l’agriculture as Minister of Ecological Transition. Three years later, it was as head of government that she strolled, Monday, February 27, Porte de Versailles, in Paris, in the largest farm in France. Two days earlier, Emmanuel Macron, inaugurating the show, had given him the task of unveiling the main lines of a plan aimed at reassuring farmers about the use of pesticides. With the guideline of coordinating France’s action with that of the European Union.
“Why ask our farmers for efforts that neighbors don’t have to make? We recently had decisions that fell a little too abruptly, we put farmers in the face of ukases, without a solution”, declared the President of the Republic. For the Elysée, “this is the first time that we want to put farmers at the heart” of the decision, while the previous agricultural pesticide reduction plans, called “Ecophyto”, were mainly supported by “motivation” environmental and health.
The first government plan, Ecophyto I, launched in 2008, aimed to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides by 50% in ten years. Faced with the difficulty of following this trajectory, Ecophyto II took over in 2015, this time pushing back the objective to 2025. The manufacturers of phytosanitary products, united within Phyteis, estimate that the volumes marketed in France have decreased by nearly 30% between 2008 and 2021.
However, in 2021, they rebounded by 8%. They should have made further progress in 2022. Phyteis, which brings together manufacturers such as Bayer, BASF or Syngenta, has not yet published them. But the total turnover of its members has increased by 30%, to reach 2.5 billion euros. Rising prices alone do not explain this jump.
Respecting the European framework
For the new plan, the State does not set a target for reducing pesticide use. “This new Ecophyto 2030 plan will be built with all the players involved, first and foremost farmers. Its resources will be increased.said M.me Terminal, without specifying the amounts. She called on the ministers of agriculture (Marc Fesneau), ecological transition (Christophe Béchu) and research (Sylvie Retailleau) to “present a new national strategy” on phytosanitary products by the summer.
By respecting the European framework and only the European framework. “We will not create any regulatory distortion for our producers, except in cases of force majeure, when public health is threatened”she added, emphasizing: “No one here wants to repeat the mistakes of chlordecone”in reference to the toxic pesticide, banned in the United States in 1975, but used until 1993 in the banana plantations of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the cause of many cancers.
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