Management of pesticides, arming of agents of the Biodiversity Office: the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard announced on Saturday, in a context of agricultural discontent, a series of measures aimed at reducing “the balls” which, according to her, weigh on the sector. “Farmers are fed up with bans, procedures, standards”she told AFP.
“These are truly burdens that have accumulated to the point of weakening the competitiveness of farms”she estimated, before listing a series of measures, including 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 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 to the top of the pile requests to place certain products on the market, in order to meet the needs deemed urgent of certain crops.
Concrete effect
“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 (authorization or prohibition), “it is not a question of dictating decisions to ANSES, which is an independent agency”she assured AFP. “I think the path to less “phyto” is a path that no one will return to. But for the sectors which are in crisis, we need ANSES to prioritize its work to respond to it”she explained.
This decree must also “improve the information of ministries (…) of Anses’ draft decisions”. He 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 European Union.
These announcements “going in the right direction”greeted the FNSEA and the Young Farmers in a press release. But “the work on simplification is far from finished” and the farmers are waiting “the urgent translation of these announcements so that they have a concrete effect on their daily lives”they add.
