Climate change is the defining issue of our time. Food and agriculture play a major role. This week, the international community is convening in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As extreme weather events threaten lives and economies [...]
This year, the Pesticide Collaboration attended the Liberal Democrat and Labour Party’s autumn conferences. Much has changed since autumn 2023 and we spent much of the year focussing our advocacy efforts on the Labour Party in particular, given that polling suggested a landslide victory. Party Leader, Sir Ed Davey, kicked [...]
PAN UK is heading to Colombia to ensure that pesticide risk reduction and agroecology are on the menu at COP16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which begins today. We will be co-hosting a side event with the Agroecology Coalition on 24th October (details below) and will be calling [...]
The need for sustainable farming has never been greater. This World Cotton Day we are celebrating the organic cotton farmers leading the way in Benin. A programme, supported by PAN UK and in collaboration with Organisation for the Promotion of Organic Agriculture in Benin (OBEPAB), is proving that organic cotton [...]
by Nick Tigg, Lewes Town Councillor Weeds spring up in unlikely places. They flourish in apparently unpromising soil, enthusiastically spreading through the fault lines under our feet. Which is also, coincidentally, how revolutions begin. And up on Lewes’s Nevill Estate in East Sussex, the smallest of revolutions is starting to [...]
Calling on our new government to undo the damage done to UK pesticide standards As we prepare to head off to Labour Party Conference this weekend, our minds are focused on what actions need to be taken by the new government to reduce pesticide-related harms to both human health and [...]
Analysis launched today has revealed that the Conservative government attacked pesticide residue safety limits on a range of common GB food items including blackberries, grapes, onions and potatoes. Between 2022 and 2024, safety limits were weakened for 115 types of produce. While most of the food types affected are fruit [...]
by Dr Victoria Burton, Ecologist, Natural History Museum It is widely recognised that human activities are driving global declines in biodiversity through land-use change, climate change, and pollution, including pesticide use. Soil biodiversity - comprising organisms like earthworms, insects, and mites - is crucial for maintaining healthy soils and is [...]
As the Paralympics begins, UK nature and health organisations unite with councillors and the public to call for the UK government to follow France’s lead by banning pesticides from towns and cities. This summer, all eyes have been on pesticide-free Paris for the Olympics, and now the Paralympics. Watching the [...]
Calling for the UK government to ban the use of pesticides in publicly run areas of our villages, towns and cities. As part of the Pesticide Collaboration, PAN UK is supporting a new campaign calling on the UK government to ban the use of pesticides in places such as playgrounds, [...]
PAN International has joined 10 global civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations in commending the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for not formalising or renewing a ‘strategic partnership agreement’ with CropLife International, the world’s biggest pesticide industry lobby group. On 15 May 2024, PAN International received written confirmation from [...]
Since the Pesticide-Free Towns campaign launched in 2015, PAN UK has helped more than one hundred UK local authorities reduce or end their use of pesticides with relatively little fanfare. In fact, in most places in the UK, how councils choose to manage weeds has generally been considered a rather [...]
Last month, we contacted our supporters about the Pesticide Collaboration’s new campaign, which is calling for a national ban on the use of pesticides in urban areas. We have now had over 100 councillors sign on to our letter to the UK Government, demonstrating that there is widespread support from [...]
The third and final part of Atalo Belay’s reflections on ten years of tackling hazardous pesticide use on smallholder cotton farms in Southern Ethiopia Read the first part ‘The pioneers’ here. Read the second part ‘Hard work pays off’ here. Are we winning? We have now trained more than 8,500 [...]
The second of Atalo Belay’s reflections on ten years of tackling hazardous pesticide use on smallholder cotton farms in Southern Ethiopia Read the first part ‘The pioneers’ here. A reason to believe It was difficult to get farmers to believe in the project at first. After years of using pesticides, [...]
The first of Atalo Belay’s (PAN Ethiopia) reflections on ten years of tackling hazardous pesticide use on smallholder cotton farms in Southern Ethiopia The pesticide problem Ethiopia’s Southern Rift Valley was a cotton production area where large volumes of pesticides were being used by both commercial and smallholder cotton farmers. [...]
PAN UK is supporting the Pesticide Collaboration on their new campaign calling for a national ban on pesticide use in urban spaces. After diet, pesticide use in our villages, towns and cities is the second most common route through which people are exposed to these chemicals. The most commonly used [...]
New research reveals that many common UK food items contain PFAS pesticides. PAN UK analysed the latest results from the UK government’s residue testing programme, finding that ten different PFAS pesticides were present in spices and a range of fruit and vegetables including grapes, cherries, spinach and tomatoes. Strawberries were [...]
The Pesticide Collaboration – hosted by Pesticide Action Network UK and the RSPB – is a coalition of environmental and health groups, academics, farming networks, trade unions and consumer rights organisations working under a shared vision to urgently reduce pesticide-related harms in the UK. Together, these groups represent more than [...]
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 [...]
