Biodiversity: Will a “bee-killing” pesticide soon be reauthorized?
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A beekeeper collects a swarm of bees clinging to a hazelnut branch in Brognard (Doubs). Dominique Delfino / Biosphoto
Advocating administrative simplification, the Duplomb bill seeks to reopen the use of acetamiprid, a pesticide accused of decimating bees. Still authorized in Europe, it has been banned in France since 2018. MPs will have to choose between competitiveness and biodiversity.
"Devilish stink bug." Rarely has a scourge lived up to its name so well. In the orchards of Lot-et-Garonne, these 15 millimeters long and grayish spots on the shell of this insect, which arrived at the end of the 2000s from Southeast Asia, haunt the nights of hazelnut producers. " We are invaded and have nothing to defend ourselves ," despairs Maxime Mazet, partner of the Gaec (1) de Salesse, in Boudy-de-Beauregard (Lot-et-Garonne). The bugs are swarming in our trees, piercing the shell of the fruit and spreading a bitterness that makes it completely unsaleable. " In this department, which accounts for 60% of French hazelnut production, 2024 will be remembered as a dark year: production has fallen by 50%.
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