Pesticide review fails consumers and farmers

21 July 2003

A new report from Friends of the Earth and PAN UK attacks the Government for failing to grasp a golden opportunity to find safer alternatives to chemical pesticides, leaving farmers with little alternative to the toxic products currently in use. The report, Breaking the pesticide chain, is being published to coincide with the withdrawal from the market of 320 pesticide products across the EU this week. In the UK 45 pesticides will be banned. Friends of the Earth and PAN UK welcome the ban, but say the review has failed consumers and farmers by not going far enough.

The report shows that:

• Many pesticides are being withdrawn for economic not safety reasons, because the manufacturers do not want to pay for the product to go through the review process.
• Some pesticides that have known risks to human health have been given approval for continued use across the EU.
• Some pesticides earmarked for withdrawal for environmental or health reasons have been given 'essential use' status and so can continue to be used until 2007.
• The slow pace of the process means that many pesticides have not yet been reviewed.
• Not enough has been done to support farmers and growers to find safer alternatives.

The report warns that UK farmers may be at a disadvantage compared to farmers in neighbouring countries because the UK Government has not ensured that alternative means of pest management are available. Instead of protecting the environment the review could lead to more imported food with associated environmental damage as food is transported over longer distances.

There are several reasons for safer alternatives being blocked including:

• Prohibitive costs of registration for new products
  
• A regulatory system that appears to favour chemical products
  
• Insufficient funding for research into alternative methods particularly for fruit and vegetables
  
• Uncoordinated nature of Government funded research
  
• Lack of a free and independent advice service to provide practical help to farmers on pesticide reduction.

Consumers would also benefit from a more proactive approach from the Government to help UK growers and reduce residues in fruit and vegetables. For example:

• Fungicide use could be reduced by more accurate prediction of disease levels. Government-funded research has been developing new detection systems that can actually measure disease carrying spores in the air.
• Accurate measurement means that spraying can be avoided if levels are not high enough to cause disease in the plant. Trials with brassica crops have shown significant reductions in fungicide use and could be developed for a wide range of crops. But the Government cut funding to this research before it reached the stage of being of practical use to farmers and growers.
• Insecticide use could be reduced by the use of pheromone traps and other natural products. Pheromones are naturally derived products, which act by changing the behaviour of the pests eg. mating disruption. In 2001, more than 19,000 hectares of apple trees in Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands were treated against insect pests using pheromones, but no UK orchards were treated using pheromones. The cost of registration and the need for biological products to prove the same level of efficacy as chemical pesticides can be a barrier to such products reaching the market.
• In the US, a separate approval process has been set up for 'biopesticides' which does not by-pass important environmental and safety assessments, but recognises that the regulatory process for chemicals is not appropriate for natural products.

"The banning of so many pesticides should have been good news for consumers and the environment," said Friends of the Earth's Pesticides Campaigner, Sandra Bell. "But the UK government has failed to grasp the opportunity to develop safer crop protection methods. Instead it has supported the continued use of some very toxic chemicals. Our farmers are stuck with chemical pesticides but alternatives have been shown to work and some are already available in other countries. This is bad news for farmers and for consumers who want pesticide-free food grown in the UK."

"There needs to be a significant increase in funding for research and development of alternatives to these pesticides coming off the UK market," said David Buffin for PAN UK. "The Government should set up a publicly funded service for farmers geared at giving practical advice about progressive reduction of pesticide use".

Friends of the Earth and PAN UK are calling for a shake up of the pesticides approvals process to help safer alternatives reach the market, a significant increase in government-funded research into alternatives and a free independent advice service to farmers about pesticide reduction, to be funded by a tax on pesticide products.

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