A report pinpoints the cost of a ban on glyphosate

n Tuesday, November 12, the French National Assembly’s Social Affairs Committee examined the conclusions of the joint fact-finding mission on the follow-through of the glyphosate ban strategy.

Three stumbling blocks for winegrowers

The seminal finding of the report is that banning glyphosate will lead to technical challenges and prove costly for farmers and winegrowers. For winegrowing, the alternative to glyphosate is tillage. But as the report points out, “even before considering the cost of [the] transition, French winegrowing would face three immediate practical obstacles:

(...) Not only is there no multi-purpose tool suited to all types of terrain, all gaps between rows, all weeds to destroy, ground cover to manage and weather conditions, but there is also no tool as yet that will meet individual needs. In any case, according to the operators met, equipment manufacturers cannot currently provide all this equipment. Lastly, there would also be a distinctive lack of qualified tractor drivers that are essential for such tricky work”.

“Five to ten years to forgo glyphosate”

Also, there are additional costs - in the range of €210/ha for wide vine plantings and €408/ha for narrow vineyards - which “could be borne by producers of wines with high price tags but would have a significant effect on the profitability of others. In view of these constraints (...) winegrowers estimate that it would take them at least five or even ten years to forgo glyphosate”.