Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-11
Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Julie Subervie, Research Director, Inrae
Tax on pesticides, dissemination of agroecological practices, ban on importing products grown with pesticides not used in France… The options to enable a sharp reduction in pesticide use are numerous, but not all have the same expected effects on yields and farmers’ incomes.
For nearly twenty years, France has been trying to reduce the use of pesticides through a series of measures and plans that have so far not achieved their initial objectives. This reduction remains a goal because the harmful impacts of pesticides on human health as well as on biodiversity are increasingly confirmed by recent scientific studies. Furthermore,The effectiveness of pesticides can erode over timeand theclimate change tends to increase their use. But is it possible to achieve a significant reduction in pesticide use in France without harming the agri-food sectors?
Two opposing strategies
To fully understand the possible consequences of a reduction in pesticides, let’s start by looking at the different favored options for this, as highlighted by the recent debates on the Duplomb law.
The defenders of this law believe that, in the long term, it will be possible to develop technological solutions that make conventional agriculture more virtuous and less dependent on chemical inputs. They are particularly relying on genetic advances, withcultures capable of protecting themselves, notably against diseases. But the development of these solutions still requires time and heavy investments.
These solutions also raisemajor debates on the patentability of living things, the impact on thebiodiversityand the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few players in the agrochemical sector where, at the extreme, all farmers might be forced to buy their seeds from the same multinational.
Opponents of the Duplomb law advocate an opposing strategy, based on the immediate or very rapid cessation of the use of the most dangerous pesticides. From this perspective, the transition should not be mainly technological, but agroecological, which impliesrethink upstream the very organization of cropping systems, production systems, and more broadly food systems.
At the production level, this involves various preventive actions (also called prophylactic), such as diversifying crop rotations and using resistant or tolerant varieties. This is the path that France embarked on more than fifteen years ago, with the Écophyto plan, implemented following the 2007 Grenelle Environment Forum and in accordance with Directive 2009/128/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.
It must be acknowledged that, despite the efforts made, theresultshave not lived up to the objectives set:the NODU indicator(which measures the intensity of pesticide use in agriculture)did not decrease as expected.
Taxing pesticides
So what other economic instruments could have been implemented? To answer this question, simulations were conducted to estimate the impact of a pesticide tax, set at a sufficiently high level to encourage farmers to reduce their use by half in Europe. This idea echoed that of aEuropean Commission draft regulation in 2024, ultimately abandoned.
The study was calibrated based on data relating to observed behaviors in French agricultural sectors and other member states over more than thirty years, which show that thepesticide purchases react littleto price variations, except when these become very significant. In other words, farmers will not spontaneously switch to alternatives likeagroecological crop protectionif the economic incentive is not particularly strong.
The results of the simulationsshow that a high tax on pesticides, combined with decoupled income support for farmers—that is, independent of their production level like the current Common Agricultural Policy aids—would have two major effects largely underestimated in previous studies: on one hand, a 26% decrease in crop production (explained by a 16% drop in yields and a 10% reduction in the agricultural area dedicated to non-forage crops); on the other hand, a 15% increase in food prices for consumers.
The dissemination of agroecological innovations
However, these rather disappointing results should be interpreted with caution. Firstly, these simulations are indeed based on the assumption that production systems would remain unchanged, in other words at constant technology.
However, in reality, farmers can adapt. The adoption of agroecological innovations would help mitigate, at least in part, the effects of an increase in pesticide prices if these innovations became widespread on farms. In this regard, the French experience is enlightening: since 2012, a network of 3,000 pilot farms has been supporting this transition, and somerecent worksshow that the innovative practices tested have already generated measurable results, including at the national level, thanks to a strong learning dynamic among farmers within their peer networks.
Change rules of trade exchanges
Secondly, the results of these simulations are obtained under the assumption that the rules on trade exchanges would not be modified. However, they could be. It is indeed appropriate to recall that nearly half of the pesticides consumed in the EU come fromimports, which nonetheless represent only 16% of the total consumption.
These figures invite consideration of the opportunity to establish mirror clauses, that is to say provisions in bilateral trade agreements allowing the regulation of agricultural and agri-food product exchanges for better environmental performance and without significant economic losses.A recent studyactually shows that a significant reduction of pesticides in Europe would not necessarily involve too large a drop in agricultural income if the uses banned in Europe were also banned for imported products.
All these studies converge towards the same observation: significantly reducing the use of pesticides requires ambitious, sustainable public policies accompanied by support for farmers, andinvolving all actors in the agri-food system.
Finally, if the agroecological transition appears costly in the short term, this assessment must be complemented on two levels: on the one hand, by including the hidden costs of agricultural pollution (health, environmental, and social); on the other hand, by evaluating the benefits of all economic instruments likely to mitigate the costs of the transition.
Julie Subervie received funding from the National Research Agency for the FAST project — Facilitating Public Action to Phase Out Pesticides (ANR-20-PCPA-0005).
Jean-Noël Aubertot benefited from funding from Écophyto, the National Research Agency (ANR), and European research programs.
Raja Chakir received funding from the National Research Agency (projects CLAND ANR-16-CONV-0003 and FAST ANR-20-PCPA-0005) as well as funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (project LAMASUS No. 101060423).
Alexandre Gohin does not work for, advise, own shares in, receive funds from an organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his research institution.
–ref. Reducing pesticides: what economic consequences for agri-food sectors? –https://theconversation.com/reduire-les-pesticides-quelles-consequences-economiques-pour-les-filieres-agro-alimentaires-280843