Flemish government approves action plan for sustainable use of pesticides
The Flemish government has on Friday approved an action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides. A European directive called for the drafting of such a plan, bringing together all relevant actions.
The action plan converts a number of ambitions from the coalition agreement into concrete measures. For instance, watercourses are better protected using larger crop-free buffer strips of three to five metres. Around nursing homes, care facilities, pre-schools, primary schools and day-care centres, a buffer strip of five metres with a green zone – with plants and trees – will be created, or ten metres if such a green zone is not possible. Farmers will be compensated for this.
Agreements have also been made on the use of crop protection near nature reserves. Where a zero fertilisation policy already applies today, pesticides may also no longer be used.
“In the vast majority of cases, this concerns grassland that our farmers can profitably exploit even without crop protection,” said Flemish agriculture minister Jo Brouns. “As part of the Open Space Pact, we will then ask nature and farming organisations to discuss where there is room for highly productive agriculture, where we can mix nature and agriculture and where nature should be given all the space it needs.”
The farmers’ union Boerenbond now hopes for adequate compensation. “We expect that in return for the extra efforts expected from our farmers, there will also be compensation from the government,” the organisation stated. “Agriculture has already taken many steps in recent years to bring down the use of plant protection products as much as possible.”
The Boerenbond union also stressed that these products are “only used when necessary and in a responsible manner” and “have gone through the strictest European and Belgian approval procedures”.
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