In 2021 and 2022, we presented the conclusions of three scientific knowledge syntheses on the impacts of plant protection products (pesticides) along with alternative solutions. Conducted as part of the Ecophyto plan at the request of the government to inform its decision-making, this research project, coordinated by the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and the French Research Institute for Sea Exploitation, (IFREMER) was unprecedented in terms of its scale, with a hundred or so experts involved and over 11,000 publications analyzed.
Our collective scientific expertise enabled us to demonstrate the extent of pesticides' impact on public health and the environment while highlighting agroecological alternative solutions capable of tackling environmental challenges while preserving agricultural production. Our work also identified the socio-economic and institutional obstacles limiting the roll-out of alternative options and the levers available for overcoming them. Our findings have fed into parliamentary work stressing the need to strengthen the Ecophyto plan, as it has failed to reduce pesticide use. However, the government chose to suspend this plan to appease the conflict with part of the farming world.
We, researchers, hereby express our concern at this decision, which is symptomatic of the disjointed handling of agricultural and environmental issues. We condemn the way scientific knowledge is being shelved and reaffirm the need for a large-scale, long-term, multi-sectoral policy promoting an economically viable agriculture sector that respects public health and the environment.
Public and animal health issues
Pesticides contaminate every environment (soil, water, air), even those far removed from where they are used. There are links between pesticides and the health of farmers, other professionals handling these products and children exposed during pregnancy: respiratory diseases, cognitive disorders, Parkinson's disease, neuropsychological and motor development disorders and cancers. The widespread use of pesticides increases the resistance of the organisms they are supposed to eliminate – compromising the products' effectiveness in the longer run – and in disease-causing organisms – raising new public and animal health issues. Pesticides contribute to the collapse of biodiversity, with a declining population of terrestrial invertebrates (earthworms, insects, etc.), aquatic invertebrates and birds. They alter natural processes like pollination and the regulation of crop pests and diseases. Yet these services, which biodiversity provides freely to farmers, are essential if they are to become more sustainable and self-sufficient.
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