beet growers forced to stop neonicotinoids in fields
By decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union, farmers can no longer benefit from derogations to continue to use these pesticides, which will allow the plantations of diseases but which kill bees.
This may be the end of a soap opera. The use of neonicotinoids, these pesticides nicknamed “bee killers”, was definitively banned by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Thursday.
By this decree, the court more precisely judges illegally the authorized States granted to certain members to be able to continue to use over a given period these products in principle prohibited since 2018.
This decision of the CJEU is not without consequences for French beet growers, and more particularly those of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and their 60,000 hectares of land, who had had to pay in recent years.
“A ball in the foot”
If farmers resort to neonicotinoids, it is because these pesticides allow their crops diseases.
Guillaume Wullens, president of the CGB of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the union of French beet growers, castigates the decision of the CJEU, which he considers brutal.
“The beet growers who have been affected by this jaundice, they do not want to relive these episodes, pleads the person concerned at the microphone of BFM Grand Lille. In addition, it is not just jaundice today in the fields. 2022 , it’s been a terrible drought. So we’re accumulating the problems and we don’t want to start a campaign with a ball on our feet.”
8000 farmers threatened?
In the opinion of Guillaume Wullens, the ban on neonicotinoids directly threatens the 8,000 farmers established in the two departments.
The president of the CGB Nord-Pas-de-Calais even anticipates shortages of beets and many derivatives. “It can be sweets that will be stopped this year, sugar and less available superethanol, he lists. And it will further amplify inflation and unemployment. I don’t think anyone wants that. “
The story is quite different on the side of bee defenders. According to Christian Godbille, the president of the beekeeping union La mouche avesnoise, “it would be wiser to treat neonicotinoids when necessary”.
Still lively debates
In the aftermath of the CJEU’s announcement, the debates are still lively. And they should in all likelihood continue in the weeks to come.
Originally scheduled for this Friday, a meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture on the subject has been postponed indefinitely to January 26, report The world. Favorable to a new authorized, the government wishes to allow time for reflection.
A source familiar with the matter even tells our colleagues that “it is likely that the reauthorization order, although illegal under European law, will be signed, then that the associations will seize the Council of State in stride” .
Whatever the decision, beet growers are hoping for a decision price before next March, the time of year when they start sowing the seeds.