Source: La Press
Translation by Google Translate
ISABEL MALSANG
Agence France-Presse
Paris
The rows of vine very clear, without grass, it is (almost) finished. The French vineyard, which absorbs in its soil a big part of the herbicide glyphosate consumed in France, tries to put itself in order of battle to become "the first vineyard without glyphosate" of the world, according to the wish of Emmanuel Macron.
Monday, at the show of Agriculture, the national committee of interprofession of wine PDO (CNIV) took up the challenge launched Saturday by the President of the Republic.
"We can go very, very quickly to get out of the glyphosate, all the faster as we receive help from the state," said Jean-Marie Barillère, president of the CNIV at a press conference.
"When I look at the French vineyard, I think we can make the first vineyard in the world without glyphosate, in 80% of cases this transition will indeed take place", said Saturday the President of the Republic in his speech. inauguration of the Salon de l'Agriculture, about this powerful weed killer, considered as "probable carcinogen" by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The question of time is not resolved, however. "We are going to get out of glyphosate, that's for sure, that's what the company is asking for, but to what end, we do not know exactly," says Bernard Farges, a Bordeaux native who chairs the CNAOC (AOC wines and spirits). .
"The president has spoken about 80% of the vineyard without glyphosate within three years, but the diesel for the automotive sector is 25 years, and for coal, we do not know yet," notes he.
Jérôme Despey, who chairs the specialized wine council of the public body FranceAgriMer, estimates that for 20 to 30% of the 800,000 hectares of vines in France, there will be "dead ends".
"We have steeply sloped areas where you can not do ground work with machinery, and you have to use chemical herbicides to prevent soil erosion," he says.
"Phytosanitary trade collapses"
He cites the Larzac terraces in the south of France: "If we do not use glyphosate in this region, viticulture is over." Alsace and its vines on the side of the valley is also concerned.
For Bernard Farges, what matters is the trend. "The trade in phytosanitary products is collapsing," he says. "And purchases of biocontrol products (products using natural mechanisms, Ed) increased by 70% in three years for the vines".
In its plan of sector delivered to the Elysee during the General States of the food, viticulture had undertaken to reduce by 50% the glyphosate within three years.
Bernard Farges believes that viticulture will go faster. "-100% herbicide in three years is impossible, but we will be -70%," he calculates. "And at -70% use of other very toxic phytosanitary products, called CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic)".
For 40 years, the French vine, with the exception of organic, has been stuffed with chemicals, admit French wine makers.
The memory of the terrible phylloxera crisis that decimated the French vineyards in the late 19 th century is surely something to do.
"Today, it's not just neo-rural people who ask us questions about our environmental practices, everyone wants to know, and we're organized," says Farges.
"But we have to admit that we moved forward because we had the gun in the back," he admits, citing multiple journalistic investigations, and pressure from environmental organizations.
Still, the removal of glyphosate will be easier to organize in vineyards "highly structured" such as Bordeaux, Cognac, Burgundy and Champagne, said Mr. Barillère, than in other regions.
The Loire Valley has just set up a professional governance that combines chambers of agriculture, interprofessional and wine syndicates "to pull the machine," he adds as an example.
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