Ecophyto 2018 Plan for the Reduction of Pesticide Use over the period 2008-2018.

This Ecophyto Plan is a ten-year sectoral document aiming at (i) developing risk management measures for pesticides through the assessment of the products and surveillance of their impacts; (ii) reducing the exposure of the population and the environment to hazardous substances through the reduction in the use of plant protection products; and (iii) lessening the dependence of cropping systems on plant protection products to guarantee the sustainability of the means of protection by limiting the development of resistance.
To achieve the goals, the Plan sets out the following objectives (i) withdrawal from the market of plant protection products containing the active substances of most concern; (ii) disseminate the best low-pesticide agricultural practice and drive innovation based on research on new systems of production enabling further reductions and which are viable and lend themselves to dissemination; (iii) develop training programs and promote safe pesticide use; and (iv) strengthen networks for surveillance of bioagressors.
To make agriculture more productive and sustainable, the Plan suggests (i) annual monitoring of pesticide use across all farmed areas; (ii) incentivising tools for the dissemination of integrated protection and techniques requiring less use of PPPs; (iii) facilitating the availability of seeds allowing low-pesticide cropping systems, together with the marketing of alternative products, especially those for biological control; (iv) focus on agricultural research on integrated production (i.e., conducting research that combine different disciplines: epidemiology, ecology, agronomics, economics and the social sciences, among others, integrated protection and production, selective breeding on hardier varieties); (v) improvement of the installed base of agricultural equipment with a view to reducing pesticide use; (vi) identifying the unwanted effects of plant protection practices in order to ensure the sustainability of production systems; and (vii) specific action taken in order to reduce pesticide use in non-agricultural areas to ensure safe practice in pesticide distribution and application, especially in locations open to the general public.
In order to enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural systems, Ecophyto envisages (i) assistance for farmers in adopting a programme aimed at reduced pesticide use and evaluation of the newly acquired benchmarks; and (ii) implementation of regionalised development actions in conjunction with agricultural development organisations (e.g. chambers of agriculture, technical institutes).
As for the Governance, the document aims at an improved monitoring of pesticide use through the cCreation of an “Ecophyto 2018” interministerial committee and the formation of an expert committee reporting to the monitoring committee led jointly by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry responsible for agriculture.