MOUGON, FRANCE (AFP) – In a field in western France, the small purple and white flowers quivering among tender shoots of wheat are a clue that this is not conventional single-crop farmland.

In fact, the whole area is part of scientific work to help farmers cut down on their use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers.

“I felt that these products were dangerous,” said farmer David Bonneau as he hunched over the little wildflowers – veronica and hickweed. And “the general public is asking for reductions”.

One of his experimental plots is treated the standard way, with chemical weedkiller; another he weeds mechanically with a harrow whose teeth tear up the wild plants; while a third will not be treated at all.

He is part of a project involving 400 farms and around 40 villages in the Deux-Sevres region of western France, where scientists are experimenting with different techniques to cut pollution.

Researchers from the French research agency CNRS support volunteer farmers to reduce the use of pesticides – probable sources of cancer and fatal to birds – as well as water-polluting chemical fertilisers, the prices of which are exploding.

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the spectre of food shortages, policymakers in Europe should not waver in their commitment to green agriculture, experts said.

And protecting Nature, a central task of biodiversity negotiations currently taking place in Geneva, is also a matter of safeguarding the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe.

“It’s important from a political point of view to show long-term engagement,” head of farming systems research at ETH University of Zurich Robert Finger said.

And greener could even mean more profitable.

“In many parts of the world, we are at a point where fertiliser use is very inefficient in terms of additional yield,” he said, referring to Europe and parts of Asia.

Excessive use of fertilisers or pesticides can affect small and large crops.

Meanwhile, researcher at the World Vegetable Centre Pepijn Schreinemachers said farmers in countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were misusing pesticides with potentially harmful consequences.

“It is important to realise that it is farmers themselves most affected by the misuse of agrochemicals,” he said. This could be using too much of a chemical, unsafe techniques or the use of the wrong products.

“Every farmer can share details about pesticide-poisoning incidents they have experienced, ranging from skin rashes to vomiting and unconsciousness. Still, most farmers strongly believe that pesticides are necessary for farm production.”

So how can farmers be persuaded to change?

Robert Finger believes farming needs to have a middle way, between full organic farming and chemical-heavy conventional agriculture.

“The most important point is that the farmers have an option to do something different,” he said.

Clear long-term public policies should help support the development of new technologies, as well as investment in pesticide-free production and techniques like growing legumes among crops to reduce the need for fertilisers.

The costs of pesticides and fertilisers should properly reflect the damage they can do, he said.

And in regions where “highly toxic” products are not being used safely, Schreinemachers said they should be banned outright, or heavily taxed to discourage use, while encouraging alternatives like biopesticides.

To help farmers overcome worries about making a switch, CNRS researchers are considering a mutual fund which would compensate them in the event of losses linked to the reduction of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, a model that already exists in Italy.

David Bonneau has seen savings so far on the costs of buying weedkiller and equipment.

When he made his first attempts at ditching the chemicals, he used his neighbour’s machinery. Since then, a more efficient device has been purchased by the agricultural cooperative.

But the proof will come at harvest time, when researchers will measure the wheat yields of each of the plots to find out the impact of the herbicide reduction.

In Deux-Sevres, “we have demonstrated that conventional farmers can reduce nitrogen and pesticides by a third without loss of yield, while increasing their income because they lower their costs”, CNRS Research Director Vincent Bretagnolle said.

But changing behaviour long-term is another challenge.

“Even the farmers who participated in the experiment and saw the results with their own eyes did not noticeably change their practices,” Bretagnolle said.

BUKAVU, DR CONGO (AFP) – Among rolling hills around the southern tip of majestic Lake Kivu, huge layers of plastic waste ride the water and block the turbines of the largest hydroelectric plant in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Ruzizi dam is polluted by thousands of bottles, cans and other objects thrown into the lake, which stretches 90 kilometres along the border between DR Congo and Rwanda.

“Since the lake flows towards the Ruzizi River, the waste thrown into it comes here little by little,” production manager at the dam’s power station Lievin Chizungu told AFP.

The mountainous terrain and rainy climate around lakeside Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, do not help.

“The rainwater carries the waste into the lake and then into the river,” engineer for the national electricity company (SNEL) in south Kivu Jovy Mulemangabo told AFP.

Chizungu said piles of waste can “reach a depth of 14 metres”. Divers clean the river bed to keep debris from clogging the turbines. If waste gets trapped, towns in the area are deprived of power.

Other employees clean the surface, using barges.

“I have been doing this job for 13 years,” Byunanine Mubalama told AFP. “Every day there is garbage I have to clean up.”

But it is not enough. One of the four units in the plant was damaged by debris at the end of January, and it is still down.

“The impact is huge. We have a deficit of 6.3 megawatts out of 30 total MW that we must produce not only for South Kivu, but also for neighbouring North Kivu province and for Burundi,” Chizungu said.

Garbage also caused an alternator to fail at the Ruzizi 2 power plant about 25 kilometres south of Bukavu. With the damage at both plants, they are 20 MW short, Chizungu said.

This has provoked “many power outages in Bukavu and Uvira”.

Nicole Menemene, 29, collects plastic waste on the lake’s shores to make baskets, flowerpots, stools and nightstands.

She runs a private company called Plastycor that transforms trash into “beautiful and useful” objects.

“We do the work by hand,” Menemene said.

The company has 10 employees, but her goal is to “industrialise” their work. With her project and other local efforts, Menemene hopes to see a “90 per cent reduction of Lake Kivu’s pollution”.

Education is a crucial first step in reducing the lake’s plastic pileup, Chizungu said.

“First, we have to teach people that they cannot dump waste in the lake,” he said, adding that authorities should crack down on people tossing garbage in the waters.

But for some local residents, it is not so simple.

“Our houses are crammed together on small plots. There is no way to manage garbage,” Mathilde Binja said. “I have no choice but to throw it into Kawa river, which dumps into the lake.”

The city does offer garbage collection and disposal services for USD3 to USD5 per month, director of Bukavu Household Waste Management Program (PGDM) Malgache Malyanga told AFP.

“Many inhabitants prefer to throw their garbage out on the road at night or in the lake,” Malyanga said.

This could be either from ignorance or lack of funds to pay for waste removal services, he added.

To combat the plague of plastic waste filling the world’s lakes, oceans and lands, the United Nations (UN) launched negotiations in March in Kenya for a global treaty against plastic pollution.