France to present a pesticide reduction plan closer to EU standards

On Monday (6 May) France will present a new pesticide reduction plan, expected to align to the EU standard the way the country measures their impact and risk, while NGOs protest against “a European race to the bottom”.

Following the announcement of a “pause” by the Prime Minister on 1 February in response to farmers’ anger, the French government will present its new “Ecophyto plan” on Monday (May 6), aiming to halve the use of plant protection products by 2030.

“It’s part of a strategy for competitiveness and sovereignty”, said Marc Fesneau, the French Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, to France Info radio on Friday (3 May).

The Ecophyto plan set up at the Grenelle Environment Forum in 2007 is far from achieving its objective of phasing out the use of plant protection products. Between 2011 and 2022 purchases have stagnated, but France remains one of the biggest users of pesticides in Europe.

The EU standard for measuring use and risk

The main innovation in the plan is a change in the way pesticide use is measured. Paris will adopt the European indicator, the HRI-1 (Harmonised Risk Indicator for pesticides) which measures the use and risk of pesticides, and abandon its own national indicator, the Nodu, which is based on the average number of treatments applied annually to all crops.

In Fesneau’s view, the European indicator is better than the Nodu because it accounts for the toxicity of molecules, while the latter makes “no distinction” between toxic molecules, those with a potential risk and those that are not toxic. “We were carrying on a blind reduction” of pesticides, he stressed on France Info.

For the government, the harmonisation of measures is necessary if European objectives are to be set.

HRI-1 was introduced in EU legislation in 2019 and was the main indicator to calculate the reduction in the use and risk of pesticides in the proposed regulation on sustainable use of pesticides, withdrawn by the European Commission in February.

Although the proposal aiming to halve the use of pesticides at the EU level by 2030 has been shelved, the Minister insisted that if the legislation comes back on the table with the new Commission, HRI-1 “will be imposed”.

European bans

The new plan also aims to end the national “over-transposition” of EU rules. In other words: not to ban chemical products if other European countries authorise them, to put French farmers in a fair competition with their EU competitors.

“If France alone bans a molecule that is authorised by our neighbours, our farmers will lose a means of protecting their crops, and our production will fall”, explained Marc Fesneau in Le Parisien.

To stay aligned with other countries, France intends to only prohibit molecules that will be banned at European level within the next three years. Paris believes this will be enough.

According to the national scientific institution Inrae, 75 molecules representing “79% of the volumes sold in France in 2022” could lose their European authorisation in the next few years, either because of revealed toxicity or because the seller has not renewed their application.

To offset these future shortfalls, the government intends to find alternatives by spending €250 million a year, including €150 million for research and €50 million to finance equipment.

A Europe-wide race to the bottom, say NGOs

French NGOs have reacted strongly to this plan, in particular attacking the HRI-1 indicator.

They criticise France for preferring the European indicator, because it ultimately enables a greater reduction in the use of pesticides to be reported.

The HRI-1 “shows a 32% drop” in pesticide use “between 2011 and 2021,” while the Nodu indicator showed that pesticide use “increased by 3% over the same period”, explained the association Générations futures in a press release.

For the association, the hazard coefficients of the European indicator are also “too low”.

This criticism has also been voiced by European NGOs, and even by the European Court of Auditors.

What’s more, the NGOs do not understand the desire to use only the European indicator, given that the current rules allow national indicators to be retained.

“France has long been considered a pioneering country in reducing the use of pesticides. With this new strategy, it joins those countries that are doing everything possible to ensure that nothing changes, setting our country back 15 years”, concluded Générations futures.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro & Chris Powers]

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