Pesticides, biodiversity office… The Minister of Agriculture unveils a series of “simplification” measures

This announcement comes in a context of discontent among farmers.

An outstretched hand from the government to farmers. Management of pesticides, arming of agents of the Office of Biodiversity (OFB)… The Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard, announced on Saturday, November 30, a series of measures aimed at reducing “the balls” which weigh on the sector. “Farmers are fed up with bans, procedures, standards”she told AFP, while the FNSEA called on Friday for new mobilizations “everywhere in France” December 9 and 10.

“These are truly burdens that have accumulated to the point of weakening the competitiveness of farms”she added, during a trip to the Loiret and the day after a meeting at the ministry with most of the unions in the agricultural sector. The minister also plans to review the unions “before Christmas” for a new “meeting of simplification, which I would even be tempted to call the meeting of common sense”. Objective, “to overcome, methodically, all the obstacles to production”she explains.

Among the measures announced, the creation of a “Steering Council for Crop Protection”. Created by decree, this Council, chaired by the minister, will bring together stakeholders including farmers, research institutes and manufacturers of phytosanitary products. It will aim to “prioritize instruction” by the Health Safety Agency (ANSES) requests for authorization of inputs, depending on 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 orphaned 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, whether for authorizations or prohibitions, “it is not a question of dictating decisions to ANSES, which is an independent agency”she assured AFP. “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 that Anses prioritizes its work to respond to it”she explained. It must be said that 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 OFB, which ensures an environmental policing role, the general director must “immediately ensure the discretion of weapons in the event of an inspection, by using devices that allow them to be concealed. This is a major irritant” for farmers, believes Annie Genevard. There will be “progressive deployment on an experimental basis (…) of the wearing of a pedestrian camera, which makes it possible to trigger on-site control recordings, possibly. Generally this makes it possible, as we see with the firefighters, the police, to bring down the tension”.

Another measure, “a circular to prefects to optimize the training capacities of breeding projects, to shorten deadlines and favor educational controls for recent installations”.