Pesticide protesters raise pressure in Bordeaux

Campaigners in the Bordeaux wine region have staged what they say will be the first of several actions to highlight the purported risks of pesticide use for vineyard workers and locals. Protesters in the Médoc on Bordeaux‘s Left Bank planted a series of un-marked white crosses last weekend and erected placards warning of the risks of pesticide-related illness.

Marie-Lys Bibeyran, of protest group ‘Médoc Pesticides Collective’, addressed vineyard workers directly in a statement. ‘We are here for you,’ she said. ‘You should not have to choose between health and work.’

Pesticides have re-emerged as a hot topic in some parts of the wine world in 2016. That is especially true in the Bordeaux area, which was the focus of a provocative French television documentary earlier this year. The Aquitaine region of south-west France, which encompasses Bordeaux, is the largest user of pesticides in the country.

Bordeaux winemakers say that they have been pro-active on the issue. In July 2016, the Bordeaux wine council, CIVB, launched a new strategy to combat pesticide risks in association with local authorities.

They said that winemakers would re-double efforts to cut pesticide use as quickly as possible, within the French governmnent’s national plan for cutting pesticide use. The CIVB also wants all wineries to achieve sustainable certification. Earlier this year, it said that 45% of estates were certified as sustainable.

That plan, known as Ecophyto, envisages a 25% cut in pesticide use by 2020 – versus 2008 levels – and a further 25% cut by 2025. The original target set by the government – a 50% reduction by 2018 – will not be met.

Put a minimum price on alcohol, says UK health body

Senior health advisers in England have used the beginning of Christmas party season to call for higher prices on wine, beer and spirits via a minimum pricing law.

Alcohol is too cheap and it is damaging people’s health to unacceptable levels, according to Public Health England. It called on the government to re-consider a minimum pricing plan for wine, beer and spirits, and it said that a current ban on selling alcohol below cost price plus VAT was not severe enough.

Minimum pricing has returned to the public spotlight in recent weeks. European winemakers have joined with Scotch whisky distillers to challenge Scotland’s plan to introduce a floor price of 50 pence per unit of alcohol on all drinks. The case was set to be heard in the UK’s Supreme Court. The previous UK government in Westminster rejected the idea of minimum pricing in 2013, and many in the drinks trade argued that the policy would do little to affect consumption.

But Public Health England urged ministers to re-consider. Overall consumption of alcohol may have fallen since 2008, but liver disease has increased by 400% since 1970, says its new report on the public health burden of alcohol. Alcohol-related illness is costing the country’s economy between 1.3% and 2.7% of GDP, the report says.

The group rejected the drinks industry argument that minimum pricing would be a blunt tool that would hurt responsible drinkers as well as those drinking to excess. ‘The MUP measure has a negligible impact on moderate drinkers and the [pub and restaurant] trade,’ it said.

The drinks industry-backed Alcohol Information Partnership said, ‘Minimum unit pricing is an untested policy built on modelling and forecasting. The evidence behind its claims is poor and controversial.’

The UK government tightened its advice to drinkers this year, warning that no one should consume more than 14 units of alcohol per week. There has been little sign this year that the government is keen to shift its stance on pricing. Such a policy might also prove difficult given the current concerns over rising consumer prices in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The science of two alcohol free days per week

Is it necessary to have 'several alcohol free' days every week and, if so, should those days be consecutive? Dr Michael Apstein, in the rare position of wine writer and liver doctor, gives his view to Decanter.

Health officials in several countries, including the UK, have advocated for people to have at least two alcohol free days per week. The UK government’s new proposal on alcohol guidelines says drinkers should have ‘several’ alcohol free days weekly.

But, how useful is this advice? And do the days need to be consecutive?

I believe advice that everyone should have at least two alcohol free days a week is a well-intentioned effort to combat the enormous adverse impact that alcohol has on some individuals’ health and well-being.

The question, of course, is whether that strategy will be effective in reducing the well-known damages of excessive drinking to individuals and society: liver disease, neurologic problems, socially unacceptable behaviour, and driving under the influence, to name just a few.

Perhaps the government has studies indicating that it will, but I’ve not seen any suggesting that two ‘dry days’ a week will have an impact on the alcohol abuse problem.

A better approach, which granted would be more difficult to implement, would be to identify those individuals who drink too much and convince them to reduce their alcohol intake.

A potential downside of the government’s advice is that is might be a rationale for individuals to over-indulge the remaining days thinking being dry for two days a week willprotect them from the ravages of alcohol abuse. It will not.