France to End Use of Glyphosate by 2021: French Agriculture Minister

French Agriculture Minister, Didier Guillaume said that the country would get rid of glyphosate use by 2021 with limited exceptions. He also announced that France is planning to sever pesticide, insecticide & fungicide use in half by the year 2025. Guillaume praised organic as well as biodynamic farming and asked the farmers to go back to the farming methods used by their ancestors.

French growers and France’s main farm union known as ‘FNSEA’ have responded negatively with public announcements underling the risk for French customers in terms of safety, quality & quantity of food.

 French Agricultural Minister on 27 April 2019 announced that the country would forbid glyphosate usage starting on 1st January 2021. The Minister said that exceptions may perhaps be granted for agricultural production in specific cases where there will be no other alternate product, but will be limited in scope as well as duration. Guillaume highlighted that France is working on developing other alternatives for the farmers.

The Minister noted that his home region of Drome produces about half of its wine output organically &/or bio-dynamically. He further stated that every chemical is problematic and his objective as Minister was to cut or remove the dependence of French cultivation on any active products and not just glyphosate. The Minister also suggested French cultivators to revert to using crop rotation, crop coverage & basic agronomic methods.

The French administration by January 2021 is mandating a complete separation of those organizations selling products & giving production suggestion to farmers in order to attain its goal of reducing pesticide use by half by 2025. When executed it would mean that cooperatives could no longer give technical advice to growers and sell the product they present as a solution. This mandate will add extra costs & administration for most cooperatives.