“Farmers are fed up with prohibitions, procedures and rules,” explained Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard.
“These are real burdens that have accumulated to the point of weakening the competitiveness of farms,” he added, before listing a series of measures, including the creation of a “Guidance 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 Security Agency (ANSES) of requests for authorization of inputs, according to the needs of the agricultural sectors.
In other words, for ANSES it will be about transferring requests for the marketing of certain products to the highest level, in order to satisfy the urgent needs of certain crops.
“We are asking Anses to prioritize orphan or poorly provided uses,” said the minister. Phytosanitary companies will be able to provide “technical experience because they are the ones who develop the products.”
Regarding the substance of the decisions (authorization or prohibition), “it is not about dictating the decisions to the ANSES, which is an independent body,” he assured AFP.
“I believe that the path towards less phyto is a path that no one will return to, it is an orientation that everyone adopts, politicians and the profession, but for the sectors that are in crisis, we need Anses to prioritize its work. to respond,” he explained.
“Common sense”
This decree must also “improve the information of the ministries (…) of the draft decisions of the Anses.” It must also “ask ANSES to facilitate the mutual recognition” of products already authorized at the European level.
ANSES is in the crosshairs of certain unions for having banned or restricted the use of certain pesticides before it occurred in the EU.
Annie Genevard announces these measures in a context of agricultural discontent, during a trip to Loiret and the day after a meeting at the ministry with the majority of the sector’s unions.
As for the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which guarantees an environmental police function, the director general must “immediately guarantee the discretion of weapons in the event of control, using devices that allow” is a great irritant “for farmers , according to Annie Ginebrard.
The use of a pedestrian camera will be “implemented progressively and on an experimental basis (…) which will allow, eventually, to activate on-site control recordings. In general, this allows, as is the case with firefighters, the police, to lower the tension.
Shorten deadlines
Another measure, “a circular to the prefects to optimize the instructional capacities of the breeding projects, shorten the deadlines and favor the educational controls of the recent ones.”
The setting of dates for agricultural work will be done at the local level, and a measure will prevent administrations from requesting the same paper several times.
Annie Genevard intends to see the unions again “before Christmas” for a new “simplification meeting, which I would even be tempted to call common sense meetings.” Objective, “to methodically overcome all obstacles to production,” according to her.
Source: BFM TV
