Editor’s Note
This article examines the persistent failure of France’s Ecophyto program to reduce pesticide use despite significant investment, highlighting systemic challenges in agricultural policy reform.
In 2008, the French government launched the Ecophyto program, whose main objective was to halve pesticide use by 2018. Fifteen years after its launch and despite the substantial funds allocated to it, various inspection reports from official evaluation bodies report the program’s failure: in 2022, the number of unit doses (Nodu, the plan’s historical indicator) has not decreased compared to its 2009 level and has even increased by 9% (the agricultural Nodu was 82 million hectares in 2009 versus 89.4 million hectares in 2022).
Academic literature analyzes this failure through different lenses: the low cost of pesticides, the complexity of regulations and their enforcement, poor public policy design, or the role of agrochemical actors in shaping the public problem definition. Few studies are devoted to analyzing the influence of downstream supply chain actors, such as food industries, transporters, or distributors. However, a recent INRAE foresight study on different pesticide reduction scenarios in Europe by 2050 precisely emphasizes the role these actors are called upon to play in transforming the sector. The report’s first key message reminds us that:
Rooted in the sociology of markets, this article uses the potato supply chain as a case study to analyze the interdependencies between farming practices and the marketing practices of supermarkets and hypermarkets. Three market devices serving the procurement needs of mass retail are studied: central purchasing bodies, specifications, and the approval process stages.
These three market devices, which guarantee compliance with the commercial standards developed by mass retail actors, represent a bundle of constraints imposed on farmers, making pesticide use a prerequisite for participating in the commercial arena. Pesticides as such can thus be analyzed as market devices enabling mass retailers to ensure the stability of their supplies, their commercial relations, and their hegemonic position within the supply chain.