To reduce “the burdens” weighing on the agricultural sector, and above all respond to its anger, the Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard, announced this Saturday, November 30, a series of measures, during a trip to the Loiret. “Farmers are fed up with the bans, the procedures, the standards,” she told AFP. “They are truly burdens that have accumulated to the point of weakening the competitiveness of farms.” This speech comes the day after a meeting at the ministry with most of the sector’s unions.
Among the key measures announced: the creation of a “Steering Council for Crop Protection”. Created by decree, this Council, chaired by the minister and bringing together stakeholders including farmers, research institutes and manufacturers of phytosanitary products, will aim to “prioritize the instruction” by the Health Safety Agency (ANSES) of requests for authorization of inputs, according to the needs of the agricultural sectors. In other words, for ANSES it will be a matter of moving requests to place certain products on the market to the top of the pile, in order to meet the urgent needs of certain crops.
“We are asking Anses to work as a priority on orphan or poorly provided uses,” said the minister. Plant protection companies will be able to provide “technical expertise because they are the ones who develop the products”. On the merits of the decisions (authorization or ban), “it is not a question of dictating decisions to ANSES, which is an independent agency, she assured. I think that the path towards less phyto is a path on which no one will return. It is an orientation which is adopted by everyone, politicians and the profession. But for the sectors which are in crisis, we need ANSES to prioritize its work to respond. “
“Simplification” and “common sense”
This decree must also “improve the information of ministries […] draft Anses decisions”. It must also “ask Anses to facilitate mutual recognition” of products already authorized at European level. Anses is in the sights of certain unions for having banned or restricted the use of certain pesticides before this was the case in the EU.
Concerning the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which ensures an environmental police role, the director general must “immediately ensure the discretion of weapons in the event of control, by using devices which allow the “It’s a major irritant” for farmers, according to Annie Genevard. There will be “gradual deployment on an experimental basis […] wearing a pedestrian camera, which makes it possible to trigger on-site control recordings, if necessary. Generally this allows, as we see with the firefighters, the police, to reduce the tension.”