Reducing the use of plant protection products: Plant Protection Product Savings Certificates (CEPP)

The French Ministry of Agriculture has introduced Plant Protection Product Savings Certificates (CEPP) as part of the Ecophyto 2030 plans and strategy to reduce the use and impact of agricultural plant protection products. This scheme encourages distributors to promote innovative plant protection actions and thus limit the use, risks and impact of these products.

Scientific assessment of crop protection practices

Each crop protection practice is assessed by a committee of scientific and technical experts led by INRAE. Its role is to oversee the drafting of standardised data sheets in line with the principles of the CEPP scheme. The scientific assessment focuses on three areas:

• measuring the reduction in the use of products;
• characterising the transformation of the system;
• determining the best evidence for implementing the action.

For each action, a certain number of certificates are awarded by the commission on the basis of the measurement of the reduction in use and made public by the ministry via a decree. These decrees are updated regularly as new information becomes available. The distributors then promote the actions to their customers according to their specific problems in order to reach the target number of certificates set for them by the Ministry.

INRAE at the heart of the CEPP scheme

INRAE plays a key role in supporting public policy through the CEPP scheme by chairing the committee that acts as the interface between the research results needed to draw up the action sheets and the Ministry of Agriculture, which administers the scheme. The CEPP committee meetings provide a forum to standardise scientific results, which are then used directly to design and implement public policy aimed at reducing the use and impact of agricultural crop protection products.

Conversely, the commission’s work on methodologies and metrics for quantifying pesticide savings has strengthened INRAE’s expertise on pesticide savings. This work is helping to formulate research questions with very high social and scientific stakes on the effect of changes in agricultural systems, which is a priority research theme for INRAE.

CEPPs are also being used to support other Ecophyto initiatives such as comparative evaluation, and to run the PPR “Cultiver et Protéger Autrement” (“Growing and Protecting Differently”) programme and the European Research Alliance “Towards an Agriculture Free of Synthetic Pesticides”.