In 2007, Jean-Louis Borloo, then Minister of the Environment, launched a major project: to reduce the use of pesticides by 50%, in 10 years if possible, through a major subsidy program called the “Écophyto 2018” plan. In conclusion of the Grenelle of the environment, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomes it in front of the representatives of the agricultural organizations. Today, however, the Socialist deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle Dominique Potier fulminates: “It is negligence. There is such a dispersion of resources that one gets lost in it.” In 2014, then at the head of a parliamentary mission, he noted that 361 million euros had been swallowed up without result.
Despite this failure, funding is increasing. In 2019, the Court of Auditors in turn sounded the alarm. According to her, not only will this pesticide reduction plan mobilize 800 million euros between 2009 and 2021, but 400 million euros of public funds spent for the same reasons per year, have been added to this sum. France would therefore have spent several billion to reduce the use of phytosanitary products in ten years, without keeping this promise, since on the contrary, their use has increased on average by nearly 15%.
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Why such a fiasco? Part of the explanation is the establishment of surveillance networks. The idea was to monitor test plots in order to detect possible diseases or pests, in order to be able to alert farmers. 9.5 million euros per year made it possible to mobilize 4,000 observers from chambers of agriculture, cooperatives, technical institutes, among others, to monitor 18,000 plots, and edit dozens of plant health bulletins . But the result is that instead of reducing the consumption of pesticides, this warning system has sometimes, on the contrary, encouraged consumption. In March 2016, a text message sent by a Center Val de Loire cooperative indicates “numerous captures of weevils yesterday in the oilseed rape, intervene within four to five days”. This type of message did not encourage farmers to do without phytosanitary products, regretted researchers from the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in an article devoted to the reasons for the failure of the Ecophyto plan.
According to some farmers, the BASF or Syngenta companies are taking advantage of this system to directly send emails or text messages that warn about pests. Élisabeth Borne, then Minister of the Environment, had denounced the device and reduced by 20% the subsidies devoted to these bulletins. “We have never been against the fact of rationalizing the system. It must be said that all the regions were not at the same level”, recognizes Philippe Noyau, of the association of chambers of agriculture. In fact, it appears that the regions which received the most money are not necessarily those which have invested the most in this monitoring, nor those which have been most successful in reducing their use of pesticides. Thus, the regional chamber of Occitanie and its partners have received more than one million euros per year, while the use of phytos has increased by 1% according to the figures for the purchase of pesticides published by the Ministry of environment between 2013 and 2019. Corsica, which received 200,000 euros per year, consumed 27% more pesticides between 2013 and 2019.
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The chambers of agriculture are not the only ones responsible for this mismanagement. An administrative report from CGEDD (The General Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development) and CGAAER (The General Council for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas) considers that: “There is insufficient coordination within the Directorate-General for Food. The tables (distribution of subsidies) are given in a heterogeneous manner, which makes national consolidation unreliable. This situation is not satisfactory, in particular for the availability of ‘elements of comparison on practices and costs in different regions. “
One of the other major subsidy items (13.5 million euros per year) corresponds to the animation of a network of so-called “Dephy” farms. The idea was to bring together a network of 3,000 operators who commit to reducing their use of pesticides and sharing their experience to serve as an example to others. The funding paid to the chambers of agriculture was to make it possible to remunerate agents and pay mission expenses to run this network. Despite very encouraging results for some operators, many of these animators were young and inexperienced. “There is a massive staff turnover in the network”, explains Bertrand Omon, agronomist at the Normandy chamber of agriculture.
To this “turnover” another obstacle has been added: “We have shown that there can be good results in this network, but we are asked not to say it too loudly”, continues the agronomist. In short, good students would not have been shown as examples to follow in order to encourage others. At the National Federation of Farmers Unions (FNSEA), we recognize a failure. “We collectively lacked ambition”, estimates Hervé Lapie, deputy general secretary of the agricultural union. “The only winners in this are the chambers of agriculture through the subsidies we give them”, comments an advisor from the independent consultancy center PCIA in the West. “It’s nothing more or less than communication. And we funded communication.”
Even more serious: the beneficiaries of this money have not always been exemplary in its use. In 2019, the Court of Budgetary and Financial Discipline condemned the heads of five chambers of agriculture for having financed agricultural unions. In Finistère, the departmental chamber has also drawn on its budget to buy football tickets for its elected officials and collaborators. In 2016, the same chamber had already provoked the ire of farmers by funding a study trip to South Africa worth 80,000 euros for elected officials, but also their spouses.
“This plan was designed with real counter logic”, estimates the former researcher of INRA Laurence Guichard. Thus, many studies which have benefited from grants duplicate. For example, the plan allocates more than three million euros to a study called “Pestiriv”, the mission of which is to measure the exposure of people living near the vines to pesticides. Except that“we have already done studies of this type”, remarks Xavier Reboud, researcher at INRA and chairman of the Strategic Research and Development Steering Committee. “We can see that today we have a multitude of studies that are not done to support the transition, but to seek subsidies”, regrets Hervé Lapie, Deputy Secretary General of the FNSEA.
More surprisingly, private actors who sell pesticides have also benefited from this aid. The InVivo group thus benefited from more than 300,000 euros, to test solutions aimed at reducing the use of synthetic products against slugs. But at the same time, the agricultural group bought several large Irish, Brazilian and Chinese companies to become one of the leaders in the distribution of pesticides in the world. Actors, such as the French Institute for Textile and Clothing and the Leather Technical Center, have also obtained an envelope to work on protective equipment for farmers. Equipment that is used precisely when treating crops. According to documents to which the Investigation Unit of Radio France had access: 200,000 euros were also granted to the FNSEA for an internet competition on … this protective equipment.
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On his arrival at the Ministry of Agriculture, Stéphane Le Foll tried to introduce a system of penalties so that sellers of pesticides offer more alternative offers to the use of chemicals. But the device was attacked before the Council of State by manufacturers and cooperatives. Consequently, “the Écophyto II plan has never been applied”, regrets Dominique Potier. And the aid continues. For two years Remy Arsento, representing SNE-FSU on the board of directors of the French Biodiversity Office, which manages part of the Ecophyto funding, has voted against the funding of this plan. “We are not against reducing pesticides, explains the union representative, but when we continue to vote for the same projects which do not bear fruit, we say to ourselves that it amounts to wasting public money. “ His vote is, however, of no consequence. As he is in the minority on the board of directors, the financing of the plan is still adopted.
The only notable change: a law has forced agricultural players to choose between the sale of pesticides and advice to farmers. But here again, most of the players have chosen the most profitable sector: the sale of products, even without the subsidies of the plan. There remains the question: why not cut off that tap of money earlier, in the face of such disappointing results? Elected officials and non-governmental organizations jointly explain that one should not anger the profession or discourage goodwill. “For a politician who wants to be re-elected, explains Claudine Joly, member of the strategic orientation committee of the plan for France Nature Environnement, it is easier to say that we encourage goodwillBut funding goodwill is apparently not enough to get results. Even after a decade.