Ecophyto plan: "We will put the means into it"claims the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau
“We are going to put the means into it”, assures Friday May 3 on franceinfo, Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture. The government will present on Monday the new version of the Ecophyto plan, which establishes objectives for reducing the use of pesticides. It was put in “break” last February to try to calm the anger of farmers. Marc Fesneau assures that the government maintains “the objective of reducing phytosanitary products by 50%” by 2030. “It’s a strategic plan, these are not regulatory elements”would like to clarify the minister.
An envelope of 250 million euros will be allocated to this plan. 146 million euros per year will be devoted “looking for alternatives to phytosanitary products, all sectors combined. And it’s already on the table” since “the research programs were launched including during the break and continue”, says the minister. 50 million will be used to finance equipment, “to ensure that we provide farmers with tools to protect their crops”. The remaining 50 million will be used in particular to finance water treatment (20 million).
This Ecophyto plan is “important” for the government “because it is an element of the competitiveness and sovereignty strategy”, explains Marc Fesneau. This is why Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced the abandonment of the Nodu indicator, defended by environmental associations, but contested by the FNSEA, in favor of the European HRI-1 indicator. Nodu, a reference indicator for measuring the reduction in pesticide use, “was just the calculation of all the molecules of phytosanitary products without distinction between what was very toxic, what carried a possible risk and what was not toxic, that is to say we made a reduction to the blind”justifies Marc Fesneau while HRI-1 prioritizes the most dangerous molecules.
What does it matter about the criticisms of environmental defense associations, which he considers unfounded? “it’s the European indicator, it comes from a European regulation that we voted for”. Marc Fesneau pleads for consistency: “It’s as if we decided in France to have a greenhouse gas reduction indicator and the other countries in the world had another indicator.”
The Minister of Agriculture does not understand “in the name of which we would ask agriculture to eliminate molecules which are not at risk” for soils and health. He doesn’t want “not deprive agriculture of chemistry, when all sectors of activity, the clothes we wear, the medicines we take, are chemicals”. Marc Fesneau nevertheless specifies that “the government’s objective is to reduce and eliminate where necessary” a product, as long as there is “a proven risk”.
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