About Sam Claydon

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So far Sam Claydon has created 185 blog entries.

Proudly Pesticide-Free: Part 1

2024-03-05T14:33:50+00:00March 12th, 2024|

This year we are celebrating 10 years since the start of farmer training in our joint project with PAN Ethiopia to get rid of Highly Hazardous Pesticides on cotton farms in Ethiopia’s Southern Rift Valley. We’re kicking off with a video from PAN Ethiopia’s Director, Dr Tadesse Amera, praising the [...]

Stories from the Ground

2024-03-05T09:08:05+00:00March 7th, 2024|

Cotton is the world’s most popular natural fibre, produced by over 24 million cotton growers in 75 countries. Whilst cotton farmers and workers are indispensable to the global fashion industry, they are largely excluded from conversations and stories around sustainability. To understand and transform the fashion and textile industry, we [...]

Take pesticide products off supermarket shelves!

2024-03-03T08:37:08+00:00March 3rd, 2024|

The growing movement calling for supermarkets to stop selling harmful gardening pesticide products continues to make progress with your help. A number of major supermarkets are currently reconsidering their sale of synthetic pesticides so an email from you now could have real impact. Thanks to public pressure, Co-op and [...]

So, your council has gone bankrupt…

2024-02-21T14:13:18+00:00February 21st, 2024|

What now for your Pesticide-Free Towns Campaign? Councils are receiving less funding, and their budgets and services are being cut. Six councils, including Birmingham and Nottingham have declared bankruptcy, and many more might follow. Most recently, Havering Borough Council revealed that they would need to file for bankruptcy if they [...]

The human and environmental cost of perfect strawberries

2024-02-16T12:48:41+00:00February 14th, 2024|

by Lucy Sabin Andalusia. A region in Southern Spain often associated with sunshine, blue skies, and the rich cultural life of its capital, Seville. If you enjoy strawberries with cream or chopped up in a cocktail then chances are you have tasted a part of Andalusia, a part less known [...]

Brighton & Hove Council announces return to chemical linked to cancer and nature declines

2024-01-18T17:17:54+00:00January 16th, 2024|

Brighton and Hove Council have decided to reinstate the use of the controversial herbicide, glyphosate, on the city’s streets. This decision bucks the trend of recent years which has seen more than one hundred UK local authorities either end, or significantly reduce, their use of pesticides in urban areas and [...]

Antimicrobial resistance and pesticides

2024-01-09T20:39:56+00:00January 9th, 2024|

By Natalie Bennett (kindly reproduced with permission from the author, the original article can be found here) Pesticides: anyone who has followed my work will know I have spoken at length and on multiple occasions, about the vast and uncontrolled environmental damage that these products cause. Now, it is becoming clearer by the [...]

Pesticide mixtures in wine more than treble since 2016

2023-12-13T00:07:40+00:00December 13th, 2023|

Recent results from the UK Government’s testing programme have exposed a dramatic increase in the proportion of wine that contains multiple pesticide residues – from 14% in 2016 (the last time that wine was tested) to 50% in 2022. The official data – which has been collated and analysed by [...]

Why COP28 must prioritise agroecology

2023-11-29T11:45:36+00:00November 29th, 2023|

Transforming agriculture and food systems – which generate over a third of global emissions – is essential to limit global warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Weaning the world off industrial agriculture reliant on fossil-fuelled chemical inputs like pesticides and fertilisers is fundamental to that. The UN’s [...]

Pesticide-Free Paris: It didn’t take a revolution

2023-11-29T09:25:58+00:00November 28th, 2023|

By Emma Pavans de Ceccatty, PAN UK As early as the 1990s, Paris was already putting significant measures in place to reduce their use of pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides etc.) on streets, pavements, parks, playgrounds and other urban spaces. By 2017, when a national ban on all amenity use [...]

A call for toxic pesticides in pet medicines to be banned

2023-11-01T00:23:40+00:00November 1st, 2023|

Pesticides used in veterinary medicines for dogs and cats are leaching into the natural environment. New analysis launched today reveals that five chemicals deemed to be too environmentally-damaging to be used as pesticides on crops are still being routinely included in pet medicines. Pointing out the inconsistency of this [...]

Call to phase out Highly Hazardous Pesticides

2023-09-25T09:27:35+01:00September 25th, 2023|

A petition, signed by 373 civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations from 74 countries, was presented to governments and other stakeholders of the Strategic Approach on International Chemicals Management (SAICM) at the opening of the 5th International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM5) in Bonn today.  The letter calls for leaders [...]

UK falling behind EU pesticide standards

2023-09-25T10:59:25+01:00September 13th, 2023|

36 pesticides permitted for use in UK but not EU, despite government promises to maintain standards post-Brexit The UK is increasingly falling behind the EU in removing chemicals that pose a risk to human health and the environment from the market. Analysis has revealed that there are now 36 pesticides [...]

Cardiff Council wrongly claims glyphosate is the most sustainable weed management option

2023-10-29T09:44:00+00:00August 24th, 2023|

by Emma Pavans de Ceccatty, Campaigner, PAN UK A private company was commissioned by Cardiff Council to carry out weed control trials in 2021. The company compared the cost and efficiency of two pesticide-free alternatives, Foamstream and acetic acid, with the commonly-used synthetic pesticide, glyphosate. Trials took place on Cardiff’s [...]

FAO Director General urged to end partnership with pesticide industry

2023-07-26T09:47:47+01:00July 26th, 2023|

Today, 11 global civil society and Indigenous Peoples organisations representing small-scale farmers, agricultural workers, trade unions, and rights holders urged Mr. Qu Dongyu to begin his new term as Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on a positive note by ending a controversial partnership with the [...]

Calling on supermarkets to ban bee-toxic pesticides

2023-07-09T23:17:06+01:00July 9th, 2023|

UK supermarkets have huge global footprints and the power to make change. They urgently need to ban bee-toxic pesticides and support growers around the world to adopt more sustainable, non-chemical alternatives. Our pollinators need us! Join us in asking Asda, Aldi, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose [...]

Are fashion retailers and brands supporting the sustainable cotton sector?

2023-06-13T08:33:42+01:00June 13th, 2023|

The 2023 Cotton Ranking of retailers and brands reveals that just nine of the major fashion companies are doing the bare minimum to improve sustainability in the cotton sector. Much of the cotton purchased by major companies does not even meet basic certification requirements. Of the 82 largest cotton-sourcing companies [...]

Toxic chemical cocktails found at over 1,600 river and groundwater sites across England

2023-05-24T11:05:57+01:00May 24th, 2023|

New analysis of official Environment Agency data has revealed the worrying scale of chemical cocktail pollution in rivers and other freshwater sites across England. The research, which looked at the prevalence of give chemical cocktails known to have toxic impacts for wildlife, also highlights the lack of official monitoring for [...]

The climate emergency is devastating Ethiopian farmers

2023-05-24T10:19:08+01:00May 15th, 2023|

by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK Staff Scientist PAN Ethiopia teams meet up for week of training in Arba Minch. Credit PAN UK I recently had the privilege of visiting my hard-working, dedicated colleagues in Ethiopia to find out how our joint projects on growing cotton organically and [...]

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