Doubts about where farmers can go for independent advice on
pesticide use were evident at the conference.
All three conference working groups recognised that some
advice was available from the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), ADAS,
independent consultants and The Arable Group (TAG) – a company formed from the
merger of Arable Research Centres and Morley Research Centre.
But the workshop on advice and extension services questioned
whether any of these were truly independent from agrochemical companies. The
national pesticides strategy workshop concluded that the lack of advisory
services could hinder farmers’ response to whatever the government is
planning. The working group on crop protocols and farm assurance found that the
variety of different schemes confused farmers and growers who were required to
meet different sets of standards.
An independent crop consultant’s view
After the conference, PN spoke to Allen Scobie, the
immediate past chairman of the Association of Independent Crop Consultants (AICC).
Mr Scobie remains an AICC member, and works for Scottish Agronomy, which gives
advice to 250 farmer clients across Scotland.
Asked about sources of independent advice for farmers on
pesticide use, Mr Scobie said that ten years ago, independent crop advisers only
represented between 20% and 30% of the market. Now the AICC alone has 180
members and represents 30% of the market, with the advisory arms of ADAS, SAC
and TAG making up another 20%.
The agrochemical industry’s distribution network – using
companies such as Dalgety and United Agri Products (UAP) – makes up the
remaining 50%. The difference between the distribution network and AICC members
is that distributors give farmers free advice on the proviso that they buy their
agrochemical inputs from them.
By contrast, independent consultants will charge a fee for
their advice on crop production, which includes seed, fertiliser and
agrochemical recommendations. In theory, this should mean a farmer is using less
chemical and the cost of his chemicals decreases because he or she has a wider
selection of distributors to choose from.
Asked whether supermarkets encouraged farmers to use less
agrochemicals, Mr Scobie said this is not always the case as some of the very
tight protocols for pests and diseases left farmers with no other option than to
treat crops as near to the harvest interval as possible. ‘If supermarkets
spent more time educating their customers not to expect perfection and were more
understanding regarding pests and diseases on their shelves then farmers could
exercise more judgement regarding integrated crop management (ICM) and use less
chemical treatments close to harvest.’
Cross compliance and the Mid Term Review
There were also concerns about advice on the cross
compliance rules under the Mid Term review of the common agricultural policy
which DEFRA (the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) is
consulting on (see article, page 7). Mr Scobie used the example of Flexity, a
fungicide produced by BASF which was approved by the Pesticides Safety
Directorate (PSD) on the basis that it was used as part of an anti resistance
strategy and could not be applied in two consecutive treatments.
‘If a farmer applies that fungicide outside the terms set
down by the PSD and the manufacturer, he could be contravening the cross
compliance rules and putting his single farm payment at risk.’
As well as encouraging farmers to know their pesticide law,
cross compliance and the single farm payment (SFP) could remove areas from
production so they are no longer sprayed. ‘I have several clients involved
with precision farming so they can monitor variations in yields across their
fields.
Once the SFP is introduced as a flat payment per hectare,
those farmers could identify areas where the cost of producing a crop is greater
than the value of that crop. Those areas – round hedgerows or sheltered by
trees, for example – will come out of production and may go into agri
environment schemes.’
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 64, June 2004, page 5]