“There is no risk for food sovereignty if they are banned”, says the Confédération paysanne

“There is only a minority of farmers who are protesting today [à Paris] and if we don’t manifest [avec eux] is that there is no risk for food sovereignty if we ban neonicotinoids“, defends Wednesday, February 8 on franceinfo Nicolas Girod, national spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne. The union denounces “reactionary shortcuts”.

At the end of January, the government finally banned neonicotinoids for beet cultivation after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the exemption granted by France to beet growers was illegal.

Why don’t you demonstrate in Paris today with the FNSEA to denounce in particular “the restrictions on the use of pesticides?

Nicholas Girod: Already there is only a minority of farmers who demonstrate today and if we do not demonstrate with them, it is because there is no risk for food sovereignty if we ban neonicotinoids. We are opposed to any derogation and it is proposed to further regulate the sugar market to allow farmers to be better paid. It makes no sense for us to demonstrate to denounce the abusive prohibition of certain products, saying “Let us continue to pollute like this, we know what we are doing, otherwise your food is in danger”these are sacred shortcuts, reactionary shortcuts.

Some of your fellow farmers have lost up to 40% of their harvest in 2020 and for them there is no alternative but to use neonicotinoids.

It’s not true. We have other alternatives. We know of sugar beet producers in organic farming and others in conventional farming who no longer use neonicotinoids. We know how to do without and in this case, we know that we will produce less sugar beet per hectare and we will therefore have a drop in volumes. It must be understood that the income of farmers is fixed according to the volume but also to the price per tonne.

For us, we need four additional euros per tonne for sugar beet to be able to better remunerate farmers to allow them to do without these pesticides.

Nicolas Girod

at franceinfo

It is up to the public authorities to act and to the buyers. If we take the example of Tereos, the sugar giant in France and around the world, it has an interest in having a lot of volume at the lowest price and organizes competition at the global level between the different farmers.

Is there a risk of seeing a sector disappear, which could force France to import more beets?

There is no risk of making the sector disappear, there is perhaps a risk that we export less, because France is a major exporter of sugar, so we are agitating the untruth of the risk for food sovereignty, but it is rather a risk for the French trade balance, this is where Tereos and the French State have an interest and the farmers certainly less. If we continue to produce with neonicotinoids, we will put the whole environment in difficulty. We know very well that pollinators, which are doomed by neonicotinoids, are needed for fruits and vegetables. However, we import more than 50% of fruits and vegetables for our consumption in France. Is there not a complete contradiction here in wanting to continue producing with these neonicotinoids by undermining a fruit and vegetable sector that is unable to meet demand in France?