The Department of the Environment (DoE)
and Department of Health (DoH) have jointly issued the UK Environmental
Health Action
DoE and MAFF held a joint Pesticide Minimisation Conference
on 25 October, opened by the Environment Minister James Clappison. Is this a new
beginning for pesticide policy, or a new glossy brochure? The conclusions
of the Conference will be announced shortly.
Ian Finlayson of Sainsburys presented the results of the
collaboration of National Farmers Union with five of the major retailers and the
launch of Crop Protocols which document best practice for horticultural growers.
David Richardson of Sentry Farming advocated Integrated Crop Management (ICM)
and the adoption of the Linking Environment and Farming scheme (LEAF). The
Pesticides Trust [now PAN UK] put its views on pesticide minimisation to the Conference.
Explaining minimisation
The current policy of minimisation says that farmers
should use the minimum amount of pesticide consistent with protecting health and
the environment and producing food. It lacks, however, any clear long or short
term strategy; any goals on how to achieve minimisation; and the means of
measuring it. On the other hand pesticide reduction policies have proved clearer
about where they are going and why. Perhaps the label of minimisation or
reduction does not matter if the goals and strategies can be implemented and
monitored. The problems with minimisation are:
A chemical-by-chemical approach. Chemicals are examined to see if they are individually 'safe', rather than focusing on the problems of pest control. The banning or restricting of one chemical may lead to the overuse of the substitute.
Too much onus on the individual user. Farmers-who cannot be experts in 600 active ingredients and several thousand formulations-have little independent advice to enable them to choose safer chemicals. The public role of ADAS is shrinking, and farmers are turning increasingly to crop consultants who are tied to distributors. Some agrochemical companies now sell services as much as products.
Is current agrochemical use sustainable or necessary? Current practice is fighting a battle it is not winning, and may be losing, against resistant pest populations. A narrow genetic base for crop varieties leaves many vulnerable to pests and disease. Rates of resistance are increasing, and rates of pest and disease attack are not diminishing. The results of research over some years now indicates that lower input regimes in many situations and rotations achieve comparable or only slightly lower yields to conventional higher input regimes; but lower input costs protect margins. The LIFE work and other European comparisons demonstrate consistent results in validated field trials. Lower inputs are achieved across the board for herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.
Policy options
A new policy could share the three main thrusts of
pesticide reduction: to reduce (minimise) use; to reduce (minimise) risks; and
to reduce dependence.
Reduction of use
Reduction of use does not mean using less weight of
pesticide: the use of newer lower-dose active ingredients, which are
correspondingly higher in biological activity, achieve this in any event. Use
reduction means lower than label doses, fewer applications and less waste or
overuse. This trend is already actively developing in UK agriculture.
Percentage reduction targets may be practical but will differ
in each sector: but percentage reduction targets are not unknown in the UK.
Recent advice has been to reduce the use of isoproturon by 40%. Discharges of
Red List pesticides should be reduced by 50% of 1985 levels (a target that has
not been met).
Reduction of risks to health and the
environment
OECD is currently exploring the concept of pesticide
risk reduction (see below). Instead of endless discussions on the size of
various relative risks, OECD has taken the view that pesticide usage is
associated with potential risks for the farmer, sprayer operator, consumer and
the environment and that these risks should be reduced as far as possible.
Reduction of dependence
Many crop varieties are vulnerable to particular
pests, and are dependent on one or two active ingredients to achieve control.
Non-chemical alternatives are urgently required. This will become a problem of
increasing importance as industry withdraws to the largest and most profitable
markets leaving smaller or minor markets without support as off-label uses.
Reduction of dependence is unlikely to be achieved without refocusing CAP
support by introducing cross-compliance measures.
Conclusions
A new policy is required that explicitly combines a
reduction or minimisation of use, of risk, and of reliance or dependence on
chemical pest control. The current challenges facing pesticides regulation are:
to resolve the contradiction between high input agriculture and the health and environmental concerns about the externalities of pesticide use;
to recognise that less intensive pesticide use cannot be encouraged by market forces alone. Non-chemical research does not have the same promise of profit or commercial prospect in the form of a saleable product. A greater investment in terms of farmer skill and training is required.
It would be helpful to re-focus policy,
not on controlling pesticides but on pest control and pest management. This
would require a comprehensive and strategic view of pest control in agriculture
and public health-perhaps an IPM Advisory Committee which includes pesticide
users.
Goals are now recognised necessary in all sectors of economic
life, whether education, health, or agriculture in order to measure progress and
make comparisons. It is important that goals be appropriate. Too much attention
has been paid to percentage use reduction targets for pesticides. Others that
might be suggested are:
75% farmers farming using IPM techniques by 2000;
improving independent extension advice provision and ratios of on-farm advisors to farmers;
50% of application machinery tested by 2000;
50 LIFE/IFS demonstration farms established by 2000;
a simplified and rationalised environmental and conservation grant structure leading to 50% of farms participating.
Without a more comprehensive approach to
strategies and goals or targets, minimal use will remain a minimal policy. (PB)
1. UK Environmental Health Action Plan: Public Consultation Draft. Department of Environment and Department of Health. August 1995.
2. Rural England-A Nation Committed to a Living Countryside. Dept. of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. HMSO, 1995, £18.90, 146pp.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 30,
December 1995, page 14]