Pesticides News No 52
The Journal of Pesticide Action Network UK
An international perspective on the health and environmental effects of pesticides
Quarterly/June 2001

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Editorial

Obsolete pesticides
Picking up the poison bill 3
PAN UK and WWF are leading an international initiative - the Africa Stockpiles Project - to raise US$250 million to pay for the removal and destruction of all obsolete pesticides in Africa.
by Mark Davis

News 5

• New study on obsolete pesticides 

• Timber treatment tests find lindane and dieldrin pollution

Disposal
A burning issue - Pesticide containers pose a lingering threat 6
Government ministers are at least five years late with new laws which could have stopped farmers burning old pesticide containers. A loophole in UK law means that farmers are still burning pesticide waste in thousands of old steel drums across the country. 
by John Harvey

Sustainable agriculture
Ethiopian farmers test alternatives to pesticides 8
Save the Children (UK) has initiated a project to promote safer and more sustainable pest management in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia.
by Fantahun Assefa and Stephanie Williamson

Natural restriction of plant disease 10
Planting mixed varieties of cereals in organic farming systems can lead to a reduction in disease and an increased yield - when compared with the pesticide-dependent single varieties of conventional agriculture. 
by Martin Wolfe

Developing country hazards
Cotton pesticides cause more deaths in Benin 12
Cotton pesticides can be extremely hazardous, particularly when poverty prevents users from taking necessary precautions. For a second season farmers have suffered acute and fatal poisonings.
by Silvère Tovignan, Simplice Davo Vodouhê and Barbara Dinham


Pesticide hazards
Twinning PIC and POPs - Governments take global action 15
The recently agreed Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Convention begins the process to eliminate or minimise the use of 12 toxic chemicals, including nine pesticides. Taken together with the Prior Informed Consent Convention, the two international agreements could provide a powerful tool to clean up environmental hazards.
by Barbara Dinham

European policy
Pushing for stricter criteria for EU approvals 16
PAN Europe has produced a Position Paper on the European Union's Pesticide Authorisation Directive (91/414), detailing recommendations for stricter criteria and the adoption of more stringent principles. 
by Heike Schmitt and Ute Meyer

News 17

• GE threat to organic centre averted

• GE linked to rise in pesticides use

• Food contamination in Ghana

• Protesters demand Bayer cleans up its act in Peru

• DuPont halts Benlate sales

Local action on pesticides 18

• Rodenticides in the UK

• University success with pesticide reduction

Fact sheet 20

• Trifluralin

News 21

• NEW resource - Learning to Cut the Chemicals in Cotton

Book reviews and resources 22-23

• Bt safety assessment

• The price of cheap food?

• Birds at risk from seed treatment

• NEW resources on-line at PAN UK - Reducing pesticide hazards in developing countries

• Public health pesticides

• DNOC

• Toxic trail across Southeast Asia