Exposure to pesticides: a platform launched to inform about the risks and challenge the government

Are we "all exposed"? Several organizations launched this Monday, February 24, an interactive online platform called "All exposed" with the aim of "measuring and understanding exposure to chemical pesticides ."

"What begins in the fields, impacts living things and ends up on our plates," we can read on the site's home page.

Four environmental associations, "Générations Futures", "Secrets Toxiques", "Noé" and "On est Prêt", have joined forces with economic players in the organic sector such as "La Maison de la Bio", as well as mutual insurance companies to launch this platform.

The organizations want to show the impact of pesticides on farmers and local residents, on ecosystems and on our water and food.

To do this, the platform offers two interactive maps. The first, called Adonis, allows you to visualize the use of chemical pesticides by municipality. Developed using data from the Solagro association, it shows significant use of these phytosanitary products, particularly in the north of France and in the greater Paris basin, as well as in the Bordeaux region and near the Mediterranean.

The second Géophyto map, developed by Générations Futures, allows you to visualize which pesticides are purchased the most by department and their impacts on health or the environment.

According to the platform, with 68,539 tonnes sold in 2022, France is the leading pesticide market in Europe, ahead of Spain (56,353 tonnes) and Germany (48,169 tonnes).

"It also climbs to third place on the podium for the number of pesticide substances, with 291 substances authorized in France in February 2023, compared to an average of 220 in Europe, thus ranking just behind Greece and Spain," we can also read.

The "Tous exposé" platform also aims to challenge public authorities on the issue of pesticides and to denounce the "regressions" of public policies on this subject. Thus, it is directly possible on the site to challenge the Minister of Health Yannick Neuder and his office.

"We propose to send an email in one click asking Yannick Neuder to include in the law the non-exposure to chemical pesticides because it is the health of everyone that is at stake, starting with our farmers," Magali Payen, from the "On est prêt" movement, explained to France Inter .

The organizations also call on the government to "permanently include non-exposure to pesticides in future national food strategies (...) and to include in the law a target of 12% consumption of products from organic farming by 2030."

In France, the Egalim law sets the objective of reaching at least 50% of quality and sustainable products, including at least 20% of organic products in collective catering. Figures that have not yet been reached.

"For 30 years, there has been a diet without synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers called organic farming and food, it represents between 5% and 6% of food and it constitutes a simple solution to minimize our exposure to pesticides in food," Christophe Barnouin of "La Maison de la Bio" told France Inter.

Pesticide residues are regularly found in our food or in the water we drink. In May, Le Monde revealed that 97% of French groundwater was contaminated by one or more pesticides, or by degradation products of these substances, the metabolites.

Links have been established between exposure to pesticides and certain diseases such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), multiple myeloma, cancer and Parkinson's disease. For example, the courts recently recognized a link between the death of a young child and her mother's job as a florist , due to exposure to pesticides when she was pregnant.

The agricultural orientation law was definitively adopted in Parliament this Thursday. One measure worries the left and environmentalists: the one that invites the government to "refrain from banning the use of plant protection products authorized by the European Union" in the absence of viable alternatives.

A bill was also passed at the end of January in the Senate, in particular to lift the ban on certain neonicotinoid pesticides, which are harmful to bees.