The government does not intend
to “go back in time”
by reauthorizing pesticides which have been banned in France, as demanded by beet growers in particular regarding an insecticide, assured Tuesday the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau.
In the context of the agricultural crisis, the General Confederation of Beet Growers (CGB), a specialized section of the majority agricultural union FNSEA, is asking to be able to once again spray acetamiprid, an insecticide from the neonicotinoid family - described as a
"killer of bees”
by environmental defenders and banned since 2016 in France.
They argue that the Germans still have this tool available to protect sugar beet plants from aphids.
For beet growers, this is an example of
“overtransposition”
because Paris banned neonicotinoids before its neighbors.
For the CGB, the sector found itself helpless after the ban on the use of seeds coated with this substance in Europe at the end of 2022, then the only use still permitted by derogation in France.
On January 23, in front of journalists, the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau explained that the union wanted to
“question”
the principle of non-regression of environmental law in the face of
“the observation that sometimes parliamentarians vote for laws which are not not completely relevant or which turn out to be a little inappropriate
.
“There should be a law”
“The idea that we can go back from time to time questions us
,” he declared, citing the example of neonicotinoids.
“The European trajectory is the eventual elimination of all neonicotinoids and related products.
In 2016, it was decided to ban neonicotinoids and related products, which was a mistake.
Good.
We are not going to take permanent steps backwards and forwards
,” declared the Minister of Agriculture on Tuesday, during the press conference presenting the 2024 Agricultural Show.
“If there was a need to change something, there would have to be a law. We are instead working on alternatives. (...) The subject is not to go back on these subjects. (...) If you open this box, I also have people who ask me for phosmet, (...) dimethoate [insecticides banned in the EU], with proven toxicities. "
, he added.
“No one is going to say that the molecules which are judged to be carcinogenic (...) are no longer so overnight, so we must still be right on these subjects,”
insisted Marc Fesneau.