Ecophyto, the French action plan to reduce pesticide use: a failure analyses and reasons for hoping

Launched in France in 2008, the national Ecophyto plan, aiming if possible at a reduction of 50% of the pesticides use within 10 years, is a failure. After the first five years of its implementation, pesticide consumption has increased. Acknowledging this failure, the French government recently announced a new version of the plan (Ecophyto 2) although some aspects of its content remain unknown. For the authors of this paper (agronomists and sociologists), failure was predictable, given the characteristics of Ecophyto 1's implemented actions. They show it by the analysis of two of the flagship initiatives of the plan (monitoring health plant bulletin, database allowing to assess in real time the risks of pests, and the DEPHY farms, an experimental network supposed to disseminate good practices, and the study of the indicator measuring pesticide use. But the failure is even more due to the plan's main focus on farmers and advisors practices regardless of the broader effects of the socio-technical lock-in including a wide range of actors all interdependent and strongly engaged in pesticides' logic of uses. Ecophyto plan has nevertheless a symbolic effect, which could be determinant at mid-and long-terms: public authorities sent the signal of the upcoming end of pesticide massive use in agriculture.