French MPs Back Outright Ban on Neonics

France’s lower house of the country’s parliament, Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly), has voted to place an outright ban on the use of all neonicotinoid insecticides in the country from Sept. 1, 2018.

At the same time, farm minister, Stéphane Le Foll, said France would call on the European Commission to apply these restrictions to all of the EU.

The proposed ban, part of a draft biodiversity bill, will go to the French Senate for further review before the Assembly takes its final vote on the matter, expected this summer.

In a statement, the French government called banning neonics “a responsible solution that provides the necessary time to assess alternatives, in terms of their pest control effectiveness and health and environmental impacts, particularly on bees.”

France had been considering a ban on all neonicotinoid insecticides from Jan. 1, 2017, but this would have required the use of other insecticides that have not been proven to be less toxic for the environment and bees, the government said.

France has often taken the lead in Europe on banning controversial substances, including bisphenol A (BPA), used in production of polycarbonate or epoxy resin can liners, which some suspect of being an endocrine disruptor.

A temporary EU-wide ban on use of neonicotinoid seed treatments for crops attractive to bees, took effect in December 2013. In some cases, the UK government recently has granted farmers exceptions.

In addition to their use in sugar beet, neonicotinoid active substances remain available for use in cereal seed treatments and as foliar sprays for control of pollen beetle in oilseed rape and aphids in a range of crops.

In the UK, the sugar beet research and advisory organization British Beet Research Organization (BBRO) has gone on record as saying that banning neonics would have “enormous” consequences for sugar beet production.

The organization has already commissioned research projects seeking alternative strategies to neonicotinoid use in sugar beet, including developing varieties with improved resistance to pests and disease, but has stressed that these would take time to reach commercial use.