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The health safety agency, ANSES, has just tightened the conditions for the use of prosulfocarb. Farmers will now have to respect a safety distance of 10 meters from homes, and reduce doses.
In these fields of Richebourg (Pas-de-Calais), Christian Durlin, farmer, cultivates cereals. To fight weeds, he uses prosulfocarb, a herbicide very common in France. The health authorities have just tightened its use. From November 1, the maximum dose authorized per hectare must be reduced by 40%. It will also be prohibited to spray within 10 meters of homes, up to 20 meters for those who are not equipped with the right spraying equipment. “On a plot of 20 hectares which borders many houses, that’s 1.6 hectares that we could not work normally“, he laments.
Also a health argument
Very volatile, this herbicide is regularly found on neighboring fields, contaminating other crops. The argument is also health-related. “ANSES cannot exclude, for exposure mainly via the skin, the exceeding of safety thresholds for children less than 10 meters away from the crop during treatments.“, indicates the report. For Générations Futures, an environmental defense association, the restrictions are insufficient. The government, for its part, says it wants to intensify research to find alternatives to herbicides.