Gouzeaucourt (France) (AFP) – Against the backdrop of debates on the possible reintroduction of controversial pesticides, a northern farmer is close to completing the financing of a small sugar factory entirely dedicated to the production of raw sugar from organic beets, a first in France.

Published on: 06/11/2026 - 21:58

Between two sheds, in the shadow of a tractor, Sébastien Lemoine, farmer in Gouzeaucourt (North), proudly displays raw sugar (unrefined, Editor's note) and syrup, which he currently has made in Germany from organic beets from Hauts-de-France.

“My first job was in the experimentation of phytosanitary products, so I know well the danger, the toxicity of these products, of pesticides in general,” explains the fifty-year-old.

So, when he took over the family farm in 1996, he immediately set about “working differently”, and observed that “when we respect nature, it does us well”. A conviction which led him to convert to organic around ten years ago.

A few kilometers away, in the village of Les Rues-des-Vignes, Gaëtan Doisy digs out an organic beet with bright green leaves.

His field is teeming with grass of all kinds, a far cry from the perfectly neat plots of his conventional farming neighbors. “If it’s not dirty, it’s not organic,” smiles this farmer mischievously.

"We've been growing beets for six years. No matter how hard we look for yellows, we can't find it," assures Mr. Doisy, referring to this dreaded disease of beet growers, which causes significant losses.

A protective barrier of flowers

His field is surrounded by a meter-wide strip of flowers in front of which Marc-André Selosse, botanist and professor at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, remains admiring.

These flowers are "full of species which retain nitrogen, which retain phosphate", known to favor the presence of aphids, which cause yellowing, explains the researcher.

Vincent Guillot, environmental director of the General Confederation of Beet Producers (CGB), notes that the north of France is less affected by problems linked to aphids, due to its colder climate. However, global warming could change the situation.

For Mr Selosse, Gaëtan Doisy's healthy beets are proof that the argument that beet growers need flupyradifurone, often considered a new generation neonicotinoid, is "rubbish".

Sébastien Lemoine agrees: natural fertilizers used in organic farming, such as manure, generate much less nitrogen than those in the conventional system. With the latter, “when the beet grows, we find ourselves with an excess of nitrogen which attracts the aphid”.

In July, Parliament adopted an agricultural emergency law providing in particular for the reintroduction of flupyradifurone for apples, cherries and sugar beets. The National Health Security Agency (ANSES) must decide whether the conditions are met for a temporary exemption.

Sébastien Lemoine is convinced that there is a space for organic sugar. For ten years he has been carrying out his project for a sugar factory dedicated to raw sugar from organic beets, the sugar factory, with the letters AB in capital letters in reference to organic farming.

Large yield gaps

He has already found the land - in Escaudoeuvres, the same town where a factory of the sugar giant Tereos closed in 2023 - and he is followed by around forty regional farmers, like Gaëtan Doisy.

All that remains is to complete the financing, which is already well underway: out of a total of 15 million euros, Sébastien Lemoine still has to find 1.6 million.

Without prejudging the success of this project, Vincent Guillot believes that "the real obstacle" for organic beet sugar today is not insecticides, it's not herbicides, it's demand", particularly because of its higher price than conventional sugar.

Mr. Guillot also underlines the significant difference in yield between organic beets and those produced by conventional agriculture, of the order of 50 tonnes per hectare compared to 80, even though the margin for beet growers is "reduced to a trickle today".

Sébastien Lemoine recognizes this: his sugar factory is "a small project", which would do in one year what the Tereos factory in Escaudoeuvres did "in two days". But with organic sugar, “I am convinced that we are in the right spiral”.

© 2026 AFP

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