The FNSEA claims 3,000 demonstrators. In particular, they deplore the ban on neonicotinoids in beet cultivation, because of their consequences for bees.
Farmers in tractors marched in Paris, Wednesday, February 8, to express their anger against restrictions on the use of pesticides and other constraints, a first for more than three years. France 2 has identified around 2,000 participants while the FNSEA claims 3,000 as well as 620 agricultural machines, which converged from the south of the capital and traveled part of the ring road.
It is the FNSEA section of the Parisian Grand Bassin, joined by the national federation and the union of beet growers CGB who called for mobilization, until February 20 throughout France.
They are reacting to the government’s decision on January 23 to give up issuing a derogation allowing the use of neonicotinoids for the cultivation of sugar beet, in accordance with a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union hailed by environmental NGOs. .
>> Neonicotinoids: what alternatives for beet growers after the abandonment of these “bee-killing” pesticides?
Farmers denounce, more broadly, the difficulty of their profession, in particular the increase in their costs in the face of soaring energy prices. They also want to be able to store water to irrigate their crops.
A delegation received by the Minister of Agriculture
“Never has there been so much question of food sovereignty, never have there been so many bans without solutions”, declared the president of the FNSEA, Christiane Lambert during this gathering. About thirty elected officials were also present, including the president LR of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand: “There is no question of making the same bullshit about agriculture” than on nuclear power, he asserted from the rostrum.
The Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau received a delegation of demonstrators in the morning “to discuss the challenges they face and the future of agricultural sectors”, according to a press release. It will bring together the beet sector on Thursday to “present an action and support plan in response to the decision” European. According to Franck Sander, president of the CGB, present at the Invalides, the minister promised that the beet growers would receive a “full compensation” in case of yield loss due to yellows.
