The Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard, announced on Saturday a series of simplification measures for farmers.
Traveling to a farm in the Loiret, the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard announced on Saturday, in a context of agricultural discontenta series of measures aimed at reducing “the burdens” which, according to her, weigh on the sector.
“Farmers are fed up with the bans, the procedures, the standards,” she told AFP.
“These are truly burdens which have accumulated to the point of weakening the competitiveness of farms,” she added, before listing a series of measures, including the creation of a “Steering Council for Crop Protection”.
Created by decreethis Council, chaired by the Minister and bringing together stakeholders including farmers, research institutes and manufacturers of phytosanitary products, will aim to “prioritize the examination” by the Health Security Agency (ANSES) of requests for authorization of inputs, according to the needs of the agricultural sectors.
In other words, For ANSES, it will be a matter of moving to the top of the pile requests for placing certain products on the market.in order to meet the urgent needs of certain cultures.
“We are asking Anses to work as a priority on orphan or poorly provided uses,” said the minister. Plant protection companies will be able to provide “technical expertise because they are the ones who develop the products”.
On the merits of the decisions (authorization or prohibition), “it is not a question of dictating the decisions to ANSES, which is an independent agency”, she assured AFP.
“I think that the path to less phyto is a path that no one will return to. It is an orientation which is adopted by everyone, politicians and the profession. But for the sectors which are in crisis, we need ANSES to prioritize its work to respond,” she explained.
“Common sense”
This decree must also “improve the information of ministries […] ANSES draft decisions. It must also “ask ANSES to facilitate mutual recognition” of products already authorized at European level.
ANSES is in the sights of certain unions for having banned or restricted the use of certain pesticides before this is the case in the EU.
Ms. Genevard announced these measures in a context of agricultural discontent, during a trip to the Loiret and the day after a meeting at the ministry with most of the sector's unions.
Concerning the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which ensures an environmental police role, the director general must “immediately ensure the discretion of weapons in the event of control, by using devices which allow the “It's a major irritant” for farmers, according to Ms. Genevard.
There will be “gradual deployment on an experimental basis […] wearing a pedestrian camera, which makes it possible to trigger on-site control recordings, if necessary. Generally this allows, as we see with the firefighters, the police, to reduce the tension.”
Another measure, “a circular to prefects to optimize the instruction capacities of breeding projects, to shorten deadlines and favor educational controls for recent ones”.
The setting of dates for agricultural work will be done at the local level, and a measure will prevent the same paper from being requested several times by administrations.
Ms. Genevard intends to see the unions again “before Christmas” for a new “meeting of simplification, which I would even be tempted to call the meetings of common sense”. Objective, “to overcome, methodically, all the obstacles to production”, according to her.
