Three, five, ten or even, very exceptionally, twenty meters… Since January 1, 2020, farmers must respect a minimum so-called safety distance between areas where phytosanitary products are spread and dwellings.
A few months earlier, Daniel Cueff, mayor of Langouet (ille-et-Villaine), had thrown a stone into the pond by signing an order, quickly suspended by justice, prohibiting the spreading of synthetic pesticides, used in conventional agriculture, within a perimeter of 150 meters around homes. About forty mayors had followed, forcing the government to react. Hence this decree of December 27, 2019 introducing these buffer zones whose perimeters vary according to the type of culture and the dangerousness of the products (see box).
We were still very far from the buffer zones of 150 m hoped for by these mayors and several NGOs… “But there was still the hope that the charters of commitment, raise the ambition”, points out Nadine Lauverjat, director general delegate of Future generations. It refers to the decree published this same December 27, 2019 which establishes the development of charters of commitment, in each department, discussed between farmers, local residents and elected officials, in order to better reconcile the evolution of agricultural practices and the presence of houses near the fields.
Three years later, along with six other NGOs, Générations Futures announces that they are filing 43 legal appeals against as many charters as they consider to be tainted with irregularities. Nadine Lauverjat responds to 20 minutes.
Where are we today in the application of non-treatment zones?
Since January 1, 2020, the minimum distances to be respected for the spreading of phytosanitary products normally apply everywhere in the territory. But the controls remain very insufficient. The French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) has this police power and a few resources to ensure it. But not enough, far from it. We need a lot more officers on the ground. During each spreading season, we always receive a large number of alerts from local residents about non-compliance with ZNTs.
And on the development of commitment charters?
Some departments still do not have one. At last count, we had twenty in this case. Conversely, we counted 62 charters approved by a signed prefectural decree, which does not mean that they are perfect. Initially, this idea of having good neighbor charters was inspired by the work done in the Limousin, around ten years ago. After a long process of consultation, arboriculturists, residents and elected officials had agreed on a charter including, in particular, this commitment not to plant an orchard within fifty meters of dwellings. With this decree of December 27, 2019, we wanted to do the same thing everywhere on the territory, but in just a few months and without public consultations, in many cases. Result: we end up with almost identical good neighbor charters from one department to another and on which the Fnsea [premier syndicat agricole, ndlr] took the hand. Far from strengthening the protection of local residents, as one might have hoped, they sometimes do the opposite.
Is even the application of buffer zones sometimes weakened in charters of commitment?
In the 43 charters that we are contesting, yes, there are provisions which tend to include derogations from compliance with minimum distances between spreading areas and dwellings. These charters stipulate for example that “in the event of irregular or discontinuous nature of the occupation of an inhabited building, the treatments can be carried out at the property boundary, provided that the building is not occupied on the day of the treatment and within two days of treatment. There is also this provision, according to which “if it is a very large property, only the regularly frequented leisure area is to be protected by safety distances”. We can imagine that the idea, behind, is to distinguish the main dwellings from the secondary ones, not occupied throughout the year. But how do you determine with certainty that a building is unoccupied on the day of the treatment? What exactly is a “very large property”? How do we ensure, again, that its occupants are not in the part of the garden near the field when it is treated? These provisions introduce vague and permissive terms Above all, they are illegal. On October 22, 2021, the Council of State confirmed the impossibility for the charters to modulate the application of safety distances.
Another example: we have seen appear, in the 43 charters for which we are filing legal appeals, a very surprising provision giving the possibility for herbicide users with boom sprayers to reduce the distance from ZNTs by ten to five meters for tall crops (vines, fruit trees, etc.). But where does it come from? In the regulatory texts, however, there is nothing that allows such derogations. And then, almost all farmers use boom sprayers and it is not this equipment in itself that allows them to be more precise when they apply.
Do you also deplore that these charters so often err on the prior information of the public?
This is another example of an attempt to circumvent the spirit of the decree. Initially, it provided for the dissemination of an alert sufficiently in advance of spraying to allow residents and other people present not to be on site at the time of spraying. However, in the main system proposed in many charters, it is clear that there is no desire to respond to this issue sufficiently. The idea is to combine collective and individual alert systems, based on each farmer. But for the first, the charters evoke the solution of the bulletin posted on the website of the Chamber of Agriculture. For the second, the door is left open to different types of devices, visual or digital. But the example given is that of the farmer turning on the beacon of his spraying equipment when he is spreading. It is very insufficient. Not only is the local resident not warned upstream, but this also assumes, for him to be warned, that he is the tractor in his field of vision… We are very far from sending at least one SMS 24 hours before spreading, a device that already exists in the Médoc or Limousin, and which is no more time-consuming than turning on your flashing light. There is clearly this desire of some farmers not to want to tell local residents when they are spreading. Perhaps for fear that they realize how often they do it?
So what do you hope for with these 43 appeals that you have just filed?
These 43 appeals represent a lot of work for our lawyers. They have not been filed all at once but will be filed gradually in the days and weeks to come before the various administrative courts concerned. We will see the follow-up that justice will give and how, too, the government will regain control of this file. To date, it has remained mainly in the hands of the Ministry of Agriculture. But, since the beginning of this second five-year term, we have had rather positive exchanges with other ministries, in particular health, on this desire to make the decree on ZNTs and the charters of good neighborliness more protective than they are not today.