Farmers in the French sugar beet industry took to the streets of Paris with several hundred tractors to protest a potential European ban on heavy chemicals in agriculture. Their protest follows a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which determined last month that EU countries cannot allow unlimited use of pesticides containing neonicotinoids.
According to the EU Court of Justice, the ban on agricultural agents containing neonicotinoids was adopted to ensure the highest protection of animal health within the EU. However, the law includes an exemption possibility for exceptional circumstances.
The EU judge ruled that producers may only use those available products that pose the lowest risk to human health and the environment. French environmental activists say pesticide residues damage the soil and nature.
French unions stated that 500 tractors and 2,000 farmers from the Paris area participated in the protest. The tractors, some of which carried banners reading “Macron liquidates agriculture” and “Save your farmer,” concluded their procession at the Monument des Invalides, near the French Ministry of Agriculture.
For two years, the French government granted sugar beet growers special permission to use neonicotinoids after nearly the entire 2020 harvest was affected by yellowing disease spread by pests and aphids. Neonicotinoids disrupt the central nervous system of bees, causing them not to return to their hives.
Besides the ban on neonicotinoids, French farmers are also angry about rising production costs linked to higher energy prices and the lack of water storage facilities to irrigate crops. Their last major protest was in November 2019, when a thousand tractors blocked the ring roads around Paris.