The Toulouse association Solagro has just published an interactive map on the exposure of municipalities to pesticides. In Occitania, the perimeter of the Mediterranean appears in red, as do sectors of Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Tarn and Lot where fruit or vines are grown.
Everyone can now estimate their level of exposure to pesticides based on where they live. It is the Toulouse association Solagro specialized in consulting and engineering of environmental transitions that created this interactive map. It makes it possible to estimate the average level of pesticide use in the municipalities of the territory.
The card is available on a platform called Adonis. Adonis being the name of a plant that was found in the harvest but which has almost disappeared, “mone the consequences of the intensification of agricultural practices and in particular the widespread use of herbicides”, emphasizes Solagro.
The map has been online since Wednesday, June 22. It is the fruit of the crossing of several official sources. “We have municipal information, that’s all that makes this card interesting”, explains Philippe Pointereau, development delegate and agronomist at Solagro.
“In France, we are lucky to have the best statistical service in the world in terms of agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture regularly produces surveys, including a series concerning farming practices. These are 4 surveys, one on the major crops such as wheat, maize etc, one which concerns viticulture, the other, market gardening and the last, arboriculture between 2017 and 2019. They give the TFI, the treatment frequency index, the number of treatments for the different crops“.
“We also have the graphic parcel registercontinues the Solagro agronomist. All farmers who receive aid from the CAP (this is the case for the majority of them), must declare their plots each year, so we have the location of all areas of wheat, vines, meadows, etc Finally, we used the database of the organic agency and a register of organic plots”.
“We aggregated all that (…) and we find ourselves able to make an average at the level of the municipality. For us, it is a provision for everyone, both individuals, farmers, local authorities, town halls, of information which the State has but which it has not made fully accessible”.
Solagro does not intend to stigmatize or condemn agricultural practices. “It’s about informing people so that the policy evolves in the right direction, explains Philippe Pointereau. We were supposed to reduce the use of pesticides by 50% in 2018, we increased by 15% so we postponed the deadline to 2025 and we are not sure of getting there. So we have public policies that are not effective. There is a failure of these policies because the means are not implemented, whether regulatory, incentive, advisory or through fees”.
“We are trying to contribute, for the health of the population and for the protection of biodiversity, to making these policies more effective. We hope that with this map, everyone will move a little to see what implement to accelerate this release of pesticides before there are no more insects”.
Solagro mobilized three people for three months to produce this interactive map. The association wishes to highlight good practices.
“We see that there are red areas but there are still green areas, notes Philippe Pointereau. There are agricultural systems that preserve biodiversity, especially when grassland is maintained for livestock and corn silage is not made. There are also municipalities that are very committed to organic farming. So the map is to point out the red zones but also all those who are making efforts to get out of pesticides and achieve the objective set by the State and Europe”.
In 24 hours, Solagro’s card was consulted more than 40,000 times. The association makes its data available to all researchers. It has already been contacted by some of them and by the European Commission.