The Pesticide Action Network (PAN)
International includes over 400 public interest representatives from 60
countries. On 18-21 May, over 120 PAN representatives from 40 countries met in
Dakar, Senegal, for the fifth International Pesticide Action Network Conference.
Participants expressed grave concern over the threats to people’s food
security, health, and livelihood. The participants signed up to a statement –
the Dakar Declaration – which challenges the view that the world can only be
fed with pesticides and genetic engineering — and it demands that citizens be
allowed to realise the goal of feeding the world without poisons through
sustainable agricultural practices.
In the UK, PAN is
concerned that the government may accept a package of voluntary industry
proposals as an alternative to imposing a pesticides tax. A number of European
countries have successfully imposed taxes, but the measure has been ruled out in
the UK for the near future. The ‘partnership approach’ was requested by the
Treasury (finance department) as a basis for further consultation following the
government’s announcement that it would not introduce a pesticide tax in the
March 2000 budget.
The apparent
change of mind has concerned a wide coalition of environment organisations,
including PAN UK, who maintain that a pesticides tax would be a more
effective way forward. On 19 April PAN UK and the Wildlife and
Countryside Link (comprising Bat Conservation Trust, Butterfly Conservation,
Council for the Protection of Rural England, Plantlife, Ramblers Association,
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and World Wide Fund for Nature) wrote
to Michael Meacher, the Environment Minister, expressing their disappointment
that the government has not yet set a tax and laying out a 10-point pesticide
reduction strategy.
The impacts of
pesticides on human health and the environment continue to come to the fore. The
UK media has recently reported on research carried out by Dr Peter Julu of the
Department of Neurology at Central Middlesex Hospital and Dr Sarah
Mackenzie-Ross of the Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University
College London, that shows organophosphate sheep-dips used by many farmers can
damage the nervous system after years of apparently innocent use. The
researchers say they have found that significant damage occurs after long-term
low-level exposure to the chemicals. Their work reveals that chronic OP
poisoning leaves a unique ‘fingerprint’.
This study raises
further doubts about the safety of OPs, and it is time for governments to
restrict their use because of these unacceptable adverse human health impacts.
In the UK
pesticide regulators rely on advice from the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. A
welcome addition to the committee is Christopher Stopes, an organic farming
consultant. Christopher hopes his input will assist the development of
environmentally benign farming systems to the benefit of organic and
conventional producers (see p.10-11).
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 48, June 2000, page 2]