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Putting Mental Models to Practice, Part 2: An Introduction to Rationality By Cedric Chin

A few days ago, in reaction to last week’s post where I discussed two upcoming cahier des charges changes – i.e. a disappointingly limited ban on herbicides and e strange imposition of the neck foil against EU regulations -  I received an email from a reader which has been on my mind ever since. The email read “I wish you would try and explain rationally why farmers use glyphosate. It cannot be that they are just hell-bent on creating a ‘nuclear wasteland’. Surely they have a practical and economic reason for this permitted and 100% legal practice.”

I answered acknowledging that glyphosate is indeed legal providing it is applied within the restrictions imposed on it – in Champagne’s case the French regulations set out by ANSES in 2020.

The exact wording of this regulation is:
“Viticulture

-       ban on using glyphosate between rows of vines: the alternative is allowing grass to grow or carrying out mechanical weeding;

-       its use is authorised in situations where mechanical weeding is not possible: steeply sloping or terraced vineyards, stony ground, rootstock nurseries;

-       maximum authorised annual rate restricted to 450 g of glyphosate per hectare, with applications limited to 20% of the plot area, i.e. an 80% reduction compared to the maximum rate currently authorised.”

The maximum allowed dose of 450 g/ha is exactly 20,83% of the 2160 g/ha, recommended application dose (by the supplier). 2160 g/ha consequentially also equals to 1 IFT and it is the maximum amount vineyard owners can spray when the vineyard cannot be worked mechanically. Both the CIVC and the Chambre d’Agriculture of the Marne and Aube estimate the surface of vineyards which cannot be worked mechanically in Champagne to be less than 6% of the total surface – or in absolute numbers less than 2040 hectares out of 34,000 hectares.

Now that the regulation has been spelled out, it is obvious from the pictures I often post that the application of glyphosate in Champagne does not abide by French rules. Moreover, the new cahier des charges change is clearly not encouraging growers to adhere to the 20% surface restriction of glyphosate as explained last week.

As for the reasons why grape farmers revert to glyphosate (and other herbicide) usage, they are indeed economic and practical, which was correctly pointed out in the comment. An article entitled “Explaining Growing Glyphosate Use: The Political Economy of Herbicide-Dependent Agriculture” written by Jennifer Clapp, a researcher at the Waterloo School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, explains that “glyphosate usage has increased since the 1980’, encouraged by “ a complex interplay of technology, market and regulatory forces.” In the specific case of Champagne, since the beginning of the eighties, herbicides usage was strongly encouraged by the CIVC technical team. Sales had exploded and more than doubled between 1970 (102 million bottles) and 1986 (205 million bottles), while at the same time the vineyard area only expanded by 40% (from 17,828 hectares to 25,427 hectares). Therefore, it was primordial for yields to increase quickly, and herbicides, including glyphosate, were the surest and quickest way to make this happen. Moreover, at that time, herbicides were not restricted by French law, and they were significantly cheaper to use than non-chemical alternatives.

Sales continued to outpace vineyard expansion until 2007, when sales peaked and began their steady decline. The appellation surface however, continued to grow at the same slow pace as before, which in theory should imply yields could drop a bit, and in the continuation of the previous thought process, so could herbicide usage. This is especially pertinent taking into consideration the changed regulatory priorities, which in the last 15 years have severely restricted herbicide usage, after it became apparent their communal disadvantages (health issues, water pollution, soil erosion, etc etc) far outweighed their advantages (bigger yields). Add to this that technological evolution today has moved away from herbicide development in favor of alternative non-chemical weeding solutions, this once again should help the transition away from herbicides.

However, mentalities are hard to change, which bring me to the third point of the comment: “that champagne producers are just hell bent on creating a nuclear wasteland”. I have been thinking about this a lot this last week, and I believe the “nuclear wasteland” concept I have regularly written about, is a matter of perception. The Oxford Dictionary, defines perception as “the way in which