28/04/2011

French experts call for greener CAP as France introduces 12 point ecological plan

The future of Common Agricultural Policy, to be revealed in 2013, has sparked serious debate in France. French agriculturalists seem ever more willing to adopt greener methods, and a round table debate, held on Friday (22^ndApril) at Angers, explored the different camps’ stances.

On Friday, 300 specialists, farmers and officials participated in a forum organized by eight agricultural associations championing organic and other sustainable farming methods to discuss CAP reforms that would benefit French agriculture. Although the event was organised largely by organic groups, the interlocutors represented a range of stances. Among those participating in the round table debates were an agroecologist and agronomist, Presient of the French Sustainable Agriculture Network and the French Union FNSEA’s vice-president, representing industrial agriculture.

Marc Defumier, agronomist and advocate of agroecological practices, called for a revolutionising of the single payment system; M. Dufumier said agricultural policy has long been founded on price guarantees and other lucrative incentives, which has brought agriculture to an impasse. Defumier presented a laundry list of shortcomings of conventional systems including overinvestment and “excessive specialization” between growing regions and livestock regions, subsidized exports of surplus quantities to the detriment of agriculture in developing countries, water pollution from pesticides and eutriphication from nitrates, soil erosion and loss of fertility. He denounced the current system, saying, “as long as single payments are awarded according to the number of hectares, and with no ceiling to payments, we will see a race towards expansion.”    

Jaques Morineau, president of the Sustainable Agriculture Network, hammered the point home; “Economies of scale do not exist in agriculture. The more we expand, the more you invest, the more we go into debt, the harder it becomes to make a profit, particularly for the young, trying to come into farming.”  Claude Cochonneau, president of the regional chamber of agriculture, added the worrying prediction that, “30% of the 39,000 farms in the Loire region could find themselves without a buyer.”

Virtuous Circle

The 2013 CAP reforms naturally present an opportunity for speculation and reflection on the current system and in Angers the debates sparked hopes for a more equitable distribution of on-farm aid. Agronomist Dufumier had the last say at Friday’s symposium; he pled for the implementation of a ‘bonus-malus’ system, whereby import duties on GM soya and maize destined for European livestock would be implemented along with a carbon tax on pesticides, chemical fertilizers, gas and oil use in order to break commercial agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuels. The generated financial resource could be redistributed, according to Dufumier, in the form of grants to allow farmers to move towards “an informed, modern and ecological form of agriculture, which would be sustainable, organic and inspired by agroecology.” 

12 measures to promote an alternative to chemical pesticides

As debates on CAP reform trended towards an agroecological perspective on Friday, the French ministry of Agriculture issued a list of 12 measures to curb chemical pesticide use. The measures are based on the findings of a parliamentary report which promotes natural methods of protection for crops, as part of Ecophyto, which aims to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2018. The ministry announced the authorization and reintroduction of ‘nettle manure’ as part of its 12 steps.

Antoine Herth, a deputy from Bas-Rhin, presented the report on 19^th April with a view to developing methods of biocontrol and “protecting arable crops by using natural mechanisms.” The objective of the report was to promote alternatives to chemical pesticides. Twelve propositions were made by the agriculture minister, Bruno Le Maire. The measures will be implemented “over the coming years,” the minister announced last Wednesday (20^th April) as part of the Ecophyto Plan.

Nettle Manure will soon be available for commercial use  image expired

Amongst these measures, the long awaited authorization of nettle manure for commercial use. Nettle manure is the first of the ‘Natural Products of Low Concern’ (préparations naturelles peu préoccupantes, or PNPPs) to be reintroduced for sale in France since the products were banned in 2006 as part of the French Farm Bill. The Bill found that these natural products, which have long been used by organic farmers and gardeners, must be subject to the same licensing procedure as their synthetic equivalents. Five years later, the products have now gained their certification and are once again available. The European regulation on organic crops of 2009, which will be brought into force in June 2011, accepts the use of PNPPs on organic farms. A directive to facilitate the certification of PNPPs was published in June 2009. The next available PNPP in France will be nettle manure in June.

This authorization of nettle fertilizer has been called for since the ban, by environmental organizations and supporters of PNPPs who launched a veritable ‘war of the nettles’ promoting the use of these natural products. However, the war is not yet over; plants such as the fern and neem tree may yet be excluded from list of authorized substances for PNPPs. Such is the fear of organization Aspro-PNPP; the group will be mounting a campaign from 29th April calling for the authorizations of PNPPs made from horsetail, comfrey, alfalfa and other plants.   

The Peasant Farmers Federation (Confédération Paysanne) has estimated that by “authorising the commercialization of a token such as nettle manure, the ministry will attempt to demobilise the movement calling for the deregulation of other PNPPs.” The Federation has reproached the government for having complicated the authorisation process by demanding the plants that form the basis of these products first be approved by Brussels. The union said, “The 200,000 Euros announced in the ‘ministerial roadmap’ for the development of organic products will not lead to more than a tiny number of dossiers.” The union also criticised the cost of the requests for authorization; the dossiers cost 40,000 euros, which the union says is “discrepant to PNPPs and organic systems, as cost is vastly above the annual turnover of small businesses in the organic sector.”  

The struggle of organic amongst other methods

In addition to reintroducing PNPPs, the deputy cited many other alternative methods; a reduction of pesticide doses and introducing macro and micro-organisms (for example fungi and insects) for biocontrol, amongst others. The decree relating to non-native macro-organisms which could protect crops will be published at the end of the year. From early 2012 the ministry of agriculture will begin considering Le Maire’s different methods of biocontrol, calculating the IFT (Treatment frequency index; a survey of farming practices) of each operation.