Recommend and guarantee: testing an insurable treatment protocol for reducing pesticide use in vineyards

Recommend and guarantee: Testing an insurable treatment protocol for reducing pesticide use in vineyardsThere is considerable uncertainty surrounding the status of sanitary threats to crop production in real time.The ratio between the direct costs of pesticide treatments and the costs associated with yield losses would suggest that risk minimization strategies include treatments that are unnecessary, while this is not known when they are selected, and that therefore cause harm to health and the environment. How can we determine the real proportion of such unnecessary treatments and support the direct economic risk of eliminating them? This article focuses on French wine production, known for its high per-unit-area use of fungicides, to describe the testing of an insurable treatment protocol. This protocol has enabled a 30-55% reduction in the use of fungicides between 2019 and 2022 and is combined with an incentive system for the payment of compensation in the event of losses, complementing the current system for covering climatic risks.