Glyphosate exit plan: French government launched online resource center

In last June, the French Government launched an action plan to put an end to the main uses of glyphosate by 2020 and by 2022 for all uses. To support farmers, a resource center is now operational. It already brings together about fifty alternative technical solutions to the use of glyphosate, documented and proven (http://ressources-glyphosate.ecophytopic.fr/home-glyphosate). This posting is one of the first steps of the action plan, which was entrusted to a "Task Force" bringing together the ministries responsible for the ecological and solidarity transition and agriculture, INRA, the Acta and APCA and chaired by Préfet Pierre-Étienne Bisch, interministerial coordinator of the glyphosate exit plan.
 

Corresponding to one of the Government's first commitments not to leave farmers without a solution, the development of the resource center was carried out by ACTA, APCA and INRA. The website, developed with the financial support of the State, will be enriched in the coming months to offer new answers to other agricultural products and the different uses of glyphosate, especially to cover other herbicides.
 

Agricultural development organizations, experimental and demonstration networks, agricultural education and research organizations are therefore more than ever mobilized , with the support of several mechanisms (Ecophyto Program, ANR, H2020 Framework Program, CASDAR Fund ) , to develop and test practical solutions to the uses of glyphosate today without alternative. Since 2015, nearly 14 research projects oriented towards alternatives to glyphosate or integrated weed management have been supported; the 2018 call for proposals of the Ecophyto plan, closed at the end of 2018, also provides a strong priority on this subject.
 

The implementation of the solutions proposed by the resource center is accompanied by animation and a strong support from the actors of the agricultural world. The role of the qualified agricultural advisors will be decisive to take into account the particularities of each farm in the evolution of their practices. Pre-existing public schemes will be strengthened, to support groups of farmers engaged in agroecology and in the reduction of plant protection products, including glyphosate.
 

Trips to the regions of the national coordinator of the action plan will be carried out to strengthen the mobilization, under the auspices of the prefects, of the network of local partners (chambers of agriculture, agricultural education establishments, agricultural development organizations, local establishment large research institutions and technical institutes, cooperatives and professional organizations).