A few hundred farmers demonstrated in Tours on Tuesday against the zones of non-treatment (ZNT) for pesticides, intended to protect local residents and “Franco-French over-regulation”, noted an AFP correspondent.
“It’s a general fed up. We devalue our jobs. We are denigrated by power. The profession is worn out by the attempts at Franco-French regulations which only generate distortions of competition and impoverishment ”, declared Sébastien Prouteau, president of the FNSEA of Indre-et-Loire.
“The decrees extending the non-treatment zones (ZNT) to pesticides and those relating to the management of the map of watercourses are causing us to lose, in Indre-et-Loire alone, 5,000 hectares in production. in net ”, he affirmed.
A hundred tractors converged at the end of the morning in snail operation towards the center of Tours. Then nearly 300 people picnicked on Place Jean-Jaurès, in front of the town hall. A banner read: “Let us work to feed you”.
A delegation was received at the prefecture at 1:30 p.m. “The Prefect received us for an hour. She listened to our grievances. If we are not heard, we will come back to demonstrate in a less friendly formulation, ”warned Mr. Prouteau.
A decree of December 27, 2019 sets minimum distances for the use of pesticides from homes: five meters for so-called low crops such as vegetables and cereals, ten meters for tall crops, fruit trees or vines, 20 meters for the substances considered as the most dangerous.
The distances of five and ten meters may be reduced to three and five meters respectively, in particular in the event of the conclusion of “departmental commitment charters” proposed by users.
[MOBILISATION RÉGIONALE TOURS????]
More than thirty farmers are on their way to Tours to say stop to regulatory inflation, to distortions of competition and for better remuneration for agricultural work.
Feed you, support us. #fiersdevousnourir pic.twitter.com/wUGCh58Dkd– Derradji Sabri (@DerradjiSabri) January 19, 2021
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