Where's the Pesticides Plan?

Sandra Bell

06 December 2012

As we approach the end of No Pesticides Use Week I find myself wondering when we will get to see the Government's new plan on the sustainable use of pesticides.

The reasons behind No Pesticides Use Week - a campaign run by Pesticides Action Network International - are sobering. On 3 December 1998 a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India exploded releasing a lethal gas. More than 500,000 people were injured and 20,000 have died since.

But this week is about more than this tragic event. It's about the ongoing risks to human health and the environment from our reliance on chemical pesticides. We face daily exposure - in our food, in our parks, gardens and schools. So does our wildlife, with the armory of chemicals still used on our farmland.

It would be fitting then if the Government were to use this week to publish its long awaited National Pesticide Action Plan. The Plan must demonstrate to the European Commission how the UK will reduce risks of pesticide use and move towards less reliance on them.

But the UK's already published draft is not so much an 'action plan' as 'business as usual'. Friends of the Earth has called for a re-write. The final version should have been sent to the Commission in November. We are still waiting.

Meanwhile in the last two weeks scientists have told the Environmental Audit Committee about mounting evidence that neonicotinoid insecticides are harming bees. Surely another prompt for the Government to reduce our reliance on toxic chemicals.

Alternatives are available. French scientists have already worked out how the country could use 30% less pesticides without harming crop yields or farmer's incomes.

The UK should be leading the way in developing safe, new, non-chemical pest control products and techniques fit for the future. Instead our Government seems to be sticking to a high risk, chemical dependent path.  But I hope that when the Pesticides Action Plan finally gets published I will be proven wrong.

Friends of the Earth's The Bee Cause campaign is asking David Cameron to tackle all causes of bee decline including the use of harmful chemicals.