NGOs slam France’s plans to adopt EU method for measuring pesticides risk

France will put on hold the rollout of its national plant protection reduction plan and may adopt an EU measurement indicator to measure a molecule toxicity factor despite criticism from NGOs.

Read the original French story here.

On Monday (12 February), the French Agriculture Ministry presented the future of the country’s plant protection plan, the so-called “Ecophyto Plan”, but the environmental associations attending the meeting left in protest against the proposed adoption of an EU indicator to measure the risk of pesticides.

Following growing protests by farmers across the country, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had previously announced that the plan, which aims to reduce pesticide use by 2030, was now “on hold”.

But a dozen environmental groups stormed out of the meeting after it was announced that Paris wants to adopt the EU’s Harmonised Risk Indicator for Pesticides 1 (HRI-1), based primarily on the quantity of active substances.

Together with the pesticides Harmonised Risk Indicator 2 (HRI-2), on the number of emergency use of pesticides banned in the EU, HR-1 was introduced by the EU in 2019.

In 2020 the two indicators became essential tools of the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy, as the parameters to measure the attainment of the target of halving the use and risk of pesticides by 2030.

Since 2016, France has used another indicator that focuses more on the volume of pesticides in relation to the area treated, called “NODU” (number of doses per unit).

Compared to the national indicator, the HRI-1 has shown to decrease faster in recent years.

Underestimating dangerous molecules

But opponents of the EU indicator say it underestimates the danger posed by active substances, giving the same weight in calculation to organic and synthetic pesticides.

According to a report published by several European NGOs, in HRI-1, 80% of pesticides fall into the hazard category of “approved active substances not belonging to any other group”, a classification penalising molecules that are less toxic.

“The HRI-1 indicator concludes that the natural sulphur-based treatment is 250 times riskier than the chemically synthesised molecule used in conventional farming,” the report reads.

The method would be detrimental to organic farming, which is a priority in the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy. For example, as the report points out, Austria, recognised as a European leader in terms of phasing out pesticides, has seen its HRI-1 increase by 26.4% while its organic area has increased.

EU Commission urges MEPs to overcome polarisation in food and agriculture debate

Maros Šefčovič, the vice-president of the European Commission, outlined on Wednesday (7 February) the work the executive is doing to respond to the challenges facing agriculture as part of a dialogue with food chain stakeholders while calling on MEPs to overcome political polarisation.

Criticism in Brussels

In Brussels, the HRI-1 indicator has been criticised since its introduction. In February 2020 the EU’s Court of Auditors (ECA) published a report concluding that, in order to achieve its objectives, the European Commission should “improve” the HRI indicators or “develop new ones” that take greater account of crop specificities and amounts of active substances applied.

Neither of the current EU indicators, ECA said, takes into account how, where and when pesticides are used.

In response to this criticism,  Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee that the bloc’s executive was considering a set of new indicators to measure the risk and use of chemical pesticides.

“These [food safety] concerns are valid, but they do not make action on pesticides any less urgent”, she said at the time.

What the European NGOs are calling for is a mixed indicator that takes several factors into account. The European Commission could “draw inspiration from the indicator developed by the French authorities”, the NODU while adding “weighting factors reflecting the toxicity of the active substance”, suggested the organic farming association IFOAM.

Balancing production and environmental concerns

But CropLife Europe defends the EU indicator. According to the organisation representing crop protection manufacturers, it is “an appropriate way to measure the reduction of pesticide risks”.

“Harmonising indicators on impact reduction” means that “we can no longer pit consumer and ecosystem health, agricultural adaptation to climate change and food sovereignty against each other”, Yves Picquet, president of Phyteis, the French agrochemical lobby, told his annual press conference on 8 February.

Speaking to the National Assembly on 7 February, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau insisted that “we need an indicator that will encourage us to focus our efforts on the products that pose the greatest risks – health, environmental or otherwise”.

However, he insisted that the political and public will to reduce the use of pesticides must not be “diverted”, concluding that “if one day we have a new SUR regulation, we’d better have the same indicator”.

While the French government and NGOs are at loggerheads over the follow-up to the Ecophyto strategy, the government told the press on Monday (12 February) that it would stick to its timetable: the decision on the EU indicator will be announced before the Salon International de l’Agriculture, which opens on 24 February.

EU Commission chief to withdraw the contested pesticide regulation

In a major blow to the EU’s Green Deal and Farm to Fork framework, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Tuesday (6 February) that she will withdraw the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR), which sought to halve pesticide use by 2030.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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