Visiting the Salon de l’Agriculture on Saturday, Emmanuel Macron tried to reassure farmers on the issue of pesticides. After recent restrictions on these products, the President announced the launch of a new plan aimed in particular at coordinating the action of France with that of the European Union.
“Why ask our farmers for efforts that neighbors don’t have to do? We recently had decisions that fell a little too abruptly, we put farmers in the face of ukases, without a solution, ”said the head of state. “We want, at European level, to have a policy that is much more harmonized,” he stressed.
“Giving visibility” to farmers
This plan, the outlines of which will be unveiled on Monday by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, will aim to “give visibility to our farmers” and “have a European calendar that corresponds to the French calendar”. Emmanuel Macron also assured that there would be “alternatives and support” for farmers affected by restrictions.
Many farmers consider that the range of authorized pesticides (insecticides, fungicides or herbicides) has been excessively reduced in recent years, leaving them faced with “dead ends”. In January, the French government was thus forced to give up granting derogations to beet producers which allowed them to use neonicotinoids, in accordance with a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This decision was taken a few weeks before beet sowing when neonicotinoids, toxic to bees, protect crops. At the beginning of February, some 500 tractors marched through the streets of Paris, at the call of the first agricultural union, the FNSEA, to denounce this renunciation.
Announcing the new plan, the Elysée pointed out: “this is the first time that we want to put farmers at the heart” of the decision, whereas the previous plans for reducing agricultural pesticides, known as Ecophyto, were mainly focused by environmental and health “motivations”. The presidency mentioned without further details “public funding” and a potential contribution from producers of phytosanitary products “who will have to tell us how much they are investing with us to find solutions”.
“We cannot open our borders without having the same quality requirements”, also argues the Elysée in an allusion to free trade agreements, with Latin America in particular. “It’s not consistent to tell our farmers ‘make an effort’, and to see sugar that comes from Brazil, with few environmental standards and products that have been banned for 20 years” in the EU.