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broadcast this Monday, July 3 at 9 p.m. on France 5the last show On the front by activist host Hugo Clément tackles head-on the government’s High Environmental Value (HVE) certification. Who is accused for 50 minutes of “unfair deception”, “scam”, “theft”, “fraud”, “deceptiveness”, “lie”, “jackpot for winegrowers”… And of “unfair competition” with European organic certification. It must be said that the title of the report gives the color, taking the side of the war of the chapels: “HVE, the label which kills the organic?”
Beginning his subject in Bordeaux vineyards, Hugo Clément asks: “Have you ever seen this High Environmental Value label? We see a pretty landscape and a beautiful butterfly. 0n wanted to know if this label really protects the environment. And especially the butterflies. » Filming the installation of air sensors to measure for two months the active ingredients used to treat the vines (… in the middle of winter, no doubt for a reconstitution, but without precision so as not to attenuate the dramatic staging), the report presents the results obtained, focusing on a trace of insecticide.
“An insecticide? To kill insects? In a High Environmental Value field? » Hugo Clément’s eyes squinted in surprise, alarmed at the traces of lambda-cyhalothrin detected (11 ng/m3), an active ingredient which, in the vineyard, targets “among others a butterfly, the grape budworm, which attacks the grapes. It is therefore a product that kills butterfly eggs and larvae. explains Hugo Clément, immediately questioning: “But isn’t that legal? », widening his eyes even more when Cyril Giraud, from Générations Futures Bordeaux, replies that it is possible in France to treat his vines against grape worms. The activist adding that “that’s why we think it’s a misleading label” (with legal proceedings). So a butterfly on the label would mean letting grape berry moths, eudemis and cochylis, thrive and yields be devastated?
If a teasing mind could answer that with this approach, literally, the organic label could also be seen as misleading (the green leaves of its logo can be very bluish by the Bordeaux mixture), a sad mind could regret the lack of knowledge of the fight against insect pests (viticulture cannot afford not to be speciesist). Well known to winegrowers, organic and conventional, eudemis and cochylis can also be targeted by organic insecticides or sexual confusion. But it seems that the report did not try to find out more, probably avoiding uneasiness at the discovery of insecticides authorized in organic products (from biocontrols to the pyrévert radical, within the framework of the compulsory fight against flavescence dorée).
Synthetic pesticides
From this introduction, barely the first minutes, the documentary poses another bias: to wonder, and to be offended, that “farmers use synthetic pesticides” in HVE. If Hugo Clément recognizes on the air that “HVE has never claimed to be as demanding as organic”, here is the crux of the matter: can we claim an agroecological approach if we are not certified organic*? The answer here is not in doubt, there is no possible vision of complementarity between the approaches or of participation in the agroecological transition. Organic and HVE can only be irreconcilable adversaries: it doesn’t matter whether there are opportunistic productivists in organic or conscientious farmers in HVE.
In France, “almost half of farms could become HVE without changing practices” says organic market gardener Mathieu Rullier** (in Mignaloux-Beauvoir, Vienne), without giving any details on the origin of this estimate. But the report stops on the testimonies of a squash producer, Françoise Meyer (in Mane-en-Provence, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) evoking the HVE certification as “just a formality” made of “calculations and administration”, and an auditor, Christine Herrero, who has never refused HVE applications. Discussing recent developments in HVE, the documentary notes that “in the face of criticism, the label has tightened the screw a little bit” and focuses on pesticides, with the ban on the use of phytopharmaceutical products Classified as Proven Reprotoxic Mutagens (CMR 1). An evolution diminished in its scope by the report, noting that these products are almost no longer used, unlike the suspected Classified Reprotoxic Mutagens (CMR 2), still “tolerated”.
In a supported way, the documentary affirms the damage of a commercial confrontation between organic and HVE, the first suffering from the second. Witness an organic store manager closing one of her brands because of the purchasing power crisis and competition from other labels. Regardless of other factors, such as the demand for new organic commitments (price or environmental requirements, such as the carbon footprint) or the overwhelming notoriety of organic on HVE (confirmed each year) .
Marketing drawing
criticizing a “nice marketing design”Hugo Clément also notes the omnipresence of the HVE label on the shelves of supermarkets. “Great find for winegrowers that the HVE label” squeals Lionel Vilain, agricultural engineer and technical adviser for France Nature Environnement (FNE), reporting a “jackpot”which indicates having “a bit ashamed” for having been the promoter of the HVE concept during the Grenelle de l’Environnement in 2009.
In short, this documentary is like a trial against… revenge? After a first documentary “Red alert on wine” last year, we can hope that the third documentary will be one of balance and nuance for Sur le front. Because there is no monopoly of best practices between the labels: no one can claim perfection. There are thus winegrowers certified both organic and HVE to combine approaches to living things and biodiversity. Testimonials on the interest of HVE as a first step in moving towards organic also exist, recalling that certification is not an end, but a means of improvement within the framework of sustainable development. An improvement process that excludes all blinders that imposes progressive stages. There is only one path to follow and one voice to hear to follow this path. In the natural history of animals (1882), Buffon writes that “nature always works and acts in everything by imperceptible degrees and nuances”. Changing practices and approaches, the agro-ecological transition is advancing in the same way. When in a TV program?
*: The question can be extended to the actual structure of the farm, only the small agricultural estates seem virtuous for the documentary. An agricultural cooperative is thus presented as a pole ” logistics “ holding “wholesaler” to vocation “industrial” in the documentary. This company did not agree to discuss with Hugo Clément, it must be said that the question asked already gives an idea of the expected answer: “How can this intensive agriculture obtain an environmental label? »
**: Being indignant at above-ground tomato greenhouses lit day and night in the Nantes region, the farmer adds that the carbon footprint is not taken into account HVE. Nor is it in organics, where winter heating has been possible in greenhouses since 2019, with a marketing ban from December 21 to April 30, a ban that has just been revoked by the Council of State.