Germany: Bronca of farmers against insect protection law

---

To save insect populations, which have been in dangerous decline in recent decades, the German government presented a bill on Wednesday drastically limiting the use of pesticides, arousing the anger of the agricultural world and reservations even among the majority.

Without farmers, no future, we are here, speak with us in Berlin, several hundred tractors marched on Tuesday, despite the snow and freezing temperatures, to express their opposition to this text. It aims to restrict the use of pesticides in the countryside to stop the disappearance of insects, a phenomenon that affects the whole planet, while these small animals are key elements of ecosystems.

Germany intends in particular to ban the use of phytosanitary products within ten meters of large bodies of water and to drastically limit spreading in protected natural areas. We are not against the protection of insects, but it must be adapted to a modern practice of agriculture, explains to AFP Wilke Luers.

For agricultural organizations, this text weighs down agriculture without contributing anything to the protection of insects. They say they favor compromises negotiated at the local level with regional authorities and environmental protection associations, based on incentives rather than prohibitions.

"At least 7%" -

Cooperation, we have been doing for twenty years, and it does not work, said Tomas Brückmann, a representative of the environmental organization Grüne Liga, to AFP.

The association split last week from a worried press release, fearing a lightening of the law, in the face of pressure from the agricultural world and some elected conservatives. The country's main farmers' federation (BDV) wrote to Angela Merkel, claiming that “at least 7% of cultivated land in Germany is threatened by this text.

A member of the Chancellor's party affirmed in the press that more than a million hectares of agricultural land could no longer be exploited properly. A regional minister of agriculture judges that the future of the vineyards is at stake, if the law is applied.

In the drawers since 2019, the text has been rejected several times due to the opposition of the Minister of Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, from the conservative CDU party, who asked for exceptions for certain crops. He has been at the heart of tough negotiations in recent days with his environment counterpart, the Social Democrat Svenja Schulze. A more consensual component also plans to reduce light pollution, harmful to insects. The content of the agreement between the two ministers, and any exemptions from the spraying bans, should be unveiled on Wednesday.

Pit

The gap between farmers and environmentalists has widened in recent years in Germany, while mobilizations for the climate push the government to act more in favor of the environment Berlin has already announced that it wants to ban at the end of 2023 glyphosate, suspected of being carcinogenic by Circ, an offshoot of the World Health Organization (WHO).

And the government will end controversial animal welfare practices, such as live castration of piglets or crushing male chicks. These reforms arouse the anger of farmers, who believe they can no longer face international competition, while many countries are not subject to these rules.

If its ratification is currently at a standstill, the free trade agreement concluded in 2019 between the European Union and the Mercosur countries, opening up European markets to certain South American agricultural commodities, worries all the more farmers.

We must expect a shift in production to South America if this law passes, said Reinhard Jung, spokesperson for the organization Freie Bauern, at the origin of the protests said to AFP on Tuesday.

According to a vast synthesis of studies unveiled in 2019, nearly half of insect species, essential to ecosystems, are in decline around the world. German scientists were among the first to sound the alarm on this "insect apocalypse" by noting, on the basis of measurements taken over 30 years, that nearly 80% of the populations had already disappeared in the country.