In this issue of Pesticides News we report on changes in the markets for both agrochemicals and biocides. For the past 20 years agrochemical sales have stagnated increasing only in line with inflation. However, data for 2004 show that there has recently been a rapid upturn in the market. A number of factors have contributed to this, including expansion of the Latin American agrochemical market and the rise of herbicide-dependent no-till agriculture. Barbara Dinham analyses this unexpected change (page 9).
This is in contrast to the fortunes of the 'non-crop' or biocide market. While agrochemical companies have been struggling with fierce competition, the increasing costs of bringing new molecules to market, and pressures related to consumer concern, the non-crop market has been quietly growing unnoticed. For the past decade demand from householders, gardeners, turf farmers, cut flower growers, foresters and public health professionals has grown at about 4-5% per year and is now a third of the value of the agrochemical market. 'Self-applied pesticides', that is those used by members of the public in their homes and gardens, account for 60% of this market. Fuelled largely by increasing individual wealth, this unfortunate trend looks set to continue (page 12).
We continue to cover issues highlighting the hazards of pesticide use. A large number of serious exposure incidents have been documented in the past decade in the Catalunya region of Spain (page 3). Many occurred when the no-entry period required after a professional fumigation was breached. This has left the health of at least 50 workers seriously affected. Unaware that fumigations had recently taken place, these people continued with their normal work routine. The riddle of the initially mysterious workplace illnesses was finally solved by the Barcelona Centre for Health and Safety at Work. Their investigations proved the role of pesticide exposure in the illnesses experienced by the affected workers. It also exposed serious breaches in the practice of pest control professionals. It is likely that these types of incidents occur in many places but remain undiagnosed.
A controversy in the UK beekeeping world has recently been uncovered by PAN UK (page 6). The main group representing UK beekeepers has accepted money from agrochemical companies in exchange for endorsing specific insecticides as 'bee-friendly'. However, UK government records indicate that some of the insecticides receiving this endorsement are proven to have poisoned bee colonies in the UK. PAN
UK’s investigation brought this to the attention of the UK national press. We present the evidence here.
Scientific research continues to uncover correlations between disease incidence and pesticide use. In Pesticides News No. 67 we summarised the concerns of the UK governments cancer advisors over links between pesticide exposure and prostate cancer. In this issue we bring news of a link between Parkinson’s disease and pesticide exposure uncovered by researchers at the University of Aberdeen (page 7).
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 68, June 2005, page 2]