Organic farmer victim of weedkiller attack
AN ORGANIC farmer in Provence who claims he was poisoned by jealous neighbours with pesticides they poured on to his vegetables has become a cause célèbre in France, amid a backlash against intensive agriculture.
Tristan Arlaud, who owns Les Jardins de Paradis (Gardens of Paradise), fell unexpectedly sick after his greenhouses were attacked by intruders who slashed its plants with secateurs.
The 46-year-old spent hours trying to save his prized vegetables and consumed some before being taken ill and having to go to hospital.
Upon examination, it transpired that the plants had been sprayed with vast quantities of glyphosate, a weedkiller that the World Health Organisation considers to be “probably carcinogenic” and which faces a European ban in 2022. Mr Arlaud has not returned to work and still has difficulty breathing. “He’s scared. We don’t know what the long-term physical consequences are,” his wife Oriane Arlaud, 37, told Sunday Telegraph.
The couple claim they are the victim of a long-running campaign by jealous neighbouring farmers and have suffered attacks over the past five years.
The fact that they are organic was a key factor, said Mrs Arlaud.
“We came in for a lot of mockery with some locals saying organic farming doesn’t exist or isn’t serious. Some couldn’t take seeing us starting from scratch and succeeding and lost the plot.” After each incident, they filed a complaint with police. Yet despite the fact that in some cases the couple even photographed the alleged culprits, who made no secret they were responsible, no one was prosecuted.
“Local authorities clearly didn’t want to make waves and hoped it would all die down, which these people saw as carte blanche to keep going. They clearly thought they’d finish the farm off and us along with it,” she said.
However, the pair have since contacted a lawyer and local media covered the attack, propelling them on to the national stage.
Mrs Arlaud said France had reached a “critical juncture” between “two opposing models”. “One is very industrial, competitive and focused on exports. The other is of smaller, human-scale farming respectful of people, animals and the surrounding environment.”