In a field in western France, the small purple and white flowers growing among tender shoots of wheat are a clue that this is not conventional single-crop farmland.
The whole area is part of scientific work to help farmers cut down on their use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.
“I felt that these products were dangerous,” farmer David Bonneau said as he hunched over the little wildflowers — veronica and hickweed, adding that “the general public is asking for reductions.”
Photo: Reuters
One of his experimental plots is treated the standard way, with chemical weedkiller; another he weeds mechanically with a harrow whose teeth tear up the wild plants; while a third is not treated at all. He is part of a project involving 400 farms and about 40 villages in the Deux-Sevres region of western France, where scientists are experimenting with different techniques to reduce pollution.
Researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) support volunteer farmers to reduce the use of pesticides — probable sources of cancer and fatal to birds — as well as water-polluting chemical fertilizers, the prices of which are exploding.
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“It’s important from a political point of view to show long-term engagement,” said Robert Finger, chairman of ETH Zurich’s World Food System Center.
Going greener could even be more profitable.
“In many parts of the world, we are at a point where fertilizer use is very inefficient in terms of additional yield,” Finger said, referring to Europe and parts of Asia.
Excessive use of fertilizers or pesticides can affect small and large crops.
Meanwhile, World Vegetable Center researcher Pepijn Schreinemachers said that farmers in countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are misusing pesticides with potentially harmful consequences.
“It is important to realize that it is farmers themselves who are most affected by the misuse of agrochemicals,” he said.
This could be using too much of a chemical, unsafe technique or the use of the wrong products.
“Every farmer can share details about pesticide-poisoning incidents they have experienced, ranging from skin rashes to vomiting and unconsciousness. Still, most farmers strongly believe that pesticides are necessary for farm production,” Schreinemachers said.
So how can farmers be persuaded to change? Finger believes farming needs to have a middle way, between full organic farming and chemical-heavy conventional agriculture.
“The most important point is that the farmers have an option to do something different,” he said.
Clear, long-term public policies should help support the development of new technologies, as well as investment in pesticide-free production and techniques such as growing legumes among crops to reduce the need for fertilizers, he said, adding that costs of pesticides and fertilizers should properly reflect the damage they can do.
To help farmers overcome worries about making a switch, CNRS researchers are considering a mutual fund that would compensate them in the event of losses linked to the reduction of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, a model that already exists in Italy.
Bonneau has seen savings so far on the costs of buying weedkiller and equipment. When he made his first attempts at ditching the chemicals, he used his neighbor’s machinery. Since then, a more efficient device has been purchased by the agricultural cooperative.
However, the proof will come at harvest time, when researchers measure the wheat yields of each of the plots to find out the impact of the herbicide reduction.
In Deux-Sevres, “we have demonstrated that conventional farmers can reduce nitrogen and pesticides by a third without loss of yield, while increasing their income because they lower their costs,” CNRS research director Vincent Bretagnolle said.
However, changing behavior long term is another challenge.
“Even the farmers who participated in the experiment and saw the results with their own eyes did not noticeably change their practices,” Bretagnolle said.
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