A decision full of consequences. The General Confederation of Beet beets (CGB) denounced on Friday the decision of the Constitutional Council to censor the reintroduction of acetamipride, a neonicotinoid pesticide that demanded to protect itself in particular from the jaundice caused by the aphids, asking the government of “Safegua” measures.
The decision made Thursday by the wise “maintains the Franco-French prohibition of the use of these molecules, however, authorized” in another part of the European Union until 2033 and “perpetuates the flagrant distortion of the competition among many French farmers and their European neighbors”, protest for the CGB, a specialized association of Fensea, in a press release.
She believes that the consequences will be “heavy”: “A strong drop in cultivated areas” against “the absence of profitability”, “weakening of industrial tools” of sugar transformation “, increased imports of products of crops protected with these prohibited molecules.”
The Confederation asks the President and the Government “a system to compensate for the losses caused by jaundice”, “the investment in an effective and pragmatic investigation of alternative solutions” and a new “bill adapted for each sector concerned with the insufficient supervision” of the “system reintroduction of acetamiprid” collected by the Constitutional Council.
France, the main European producer
Wise men estimated that the reintroduction of acetamipride was insufficiently framed by the Dupil Law, because it is not limited in time, or a sector, and also in relation to the spray, with the high risks of dispersion of harmful substances.
During the 2024-2025 campaign, 32.9 million tons of sugar beets were harvested, in more than 411,000 hectares worked by 23,000 planters, according to Sugar Cultures, which allowed France to continue to be the main producer in Europe, the second beet sugar producer in the world and the first European agricultural alcohol producer.
The acetamipride has never been used for beets in France, where three other molecules were preferred before its prohibition in 2018. Betraviers had obtained defeats to use seeds coated with neonicotinoids after the terrible year of 2020 that had seen the French harvest fallen into almost a third due to an epidemic of Jaundry.
Oppositors to the reintroduction of acetamipride argue that the French beet industry is surplus and that there are already relatively effective solutions and alternative search plans for this culture.
Source: BFM TV
