Usually our
editorial is about pesticide issues, but we break our rule to announce that the
Pesticides Trust has changed its name to Pesticide Action Network UK.
Pesticides Trust was a ‘working title’ adopted in 1987 when we were founded
but we became increasingly aware that it conveyed the wrong message: indeed we
have received letters addressed to Trust Pesticides. We have chosen Pesticide
Action Network UK (PAN UK) to reflect a number of things – the name
confirms our commitment to the worldwide Pesticide Action Network of which we
are part; and the name is also more easily understood beyond these shores. This
issue of Pesticides News and our Annual Review 1999 which is now
available reflect the change. The change is, however, a change in name only: our
orientation, staff and policies remain the same.
Three of our
leading articles demonstrate the hazards of pesticide use in developing
countries. Aerial spraying continues to cause health problems in India. Working
conditions in a pineapple plantation in Kenya are inadequate and show yet again
how difficult the concept of ‘safe use’ is to apply in practice. And in
Benin, the introduction of endosulfan to control cotton pests has been
associated with alarmingly high pesticide poisonings and deaths. A positive side
to the story comes from the workshop held as part of PAN UK’s African
Resources Project in Benin. Three documentation centres are in the process of
being set up, and farmers are seeking information not only on pesticides and
their hazards, but also on how they can change their practice in the direction
of sustainable agriculture and organic farming.
The costs of
pesticide use in the UK – particularly some organophosphates (OP) – are
again demonstrated. Those whose health has been affected by pesticides met at a
conference organised by the PAN UK PEX project in Sunderland to hear that
a less delayed test for OP exposure may soon be at hand, and that litigation is
driving forward consensus on a possible diagnosis for chronic OP poisoning. The
government has acted a mere 50 years after it was first advised, to revoke
approvals on OP sheep dips unless container design can be improved. A consultant
neurologist explains new findings about possible additive and synergistic
interactions between OP compounds that have come to light as a result of
post-Gulf War investigations. More OPs are found in peppers and there are
proposals from the international Codex Alimentarius (Food Code) Commission,
which promotes international standards in trade, to increase the residue level
of certain OPs permitted in fruit.
Who will pay
for the costs of pesticide use? The Parliamentary Select Committee on
Environmental Audit has just reported as we go to press, strongly recommending
further consideration of a pesticide tax. The government in the meantime had
just announced there would be no such tax in the March budget, preferring
instead so far undisclosed proposals from the British Agrochemical Association.
This is not the stakeholder consultation we need to promote a more sustainable
agriculture in the UK.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 47, March 2000, page2]