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 [...]

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 [...]

Call for United Nations to end partnership with pesticide industry

2022-06-09T15:34:21+01:00June 9th, 2022|

Today, 430 civil society and Indigenous peoples organisations from 69 countries around the world called on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to uphold human rights and end its partnership with CropLife International. CropLife is the industry association that represents the world’s largest pesticide manufacturers. Ahead of the [...]

UK Government permits use of bee-toxic insecticides

2022-05-10T15:03:51+01:00January 14th, 2022|

The UK Government has today announced that it has approved an application by the British sugar beet industry and National Farmers Union (NFU) to use the bee-toxic insecticide, thiamethoxam, this growing season. The announcement mirrors a January 2020 decision from the UK Government. Last year, Defra made similar concessions to [...]

Impacts of pesticides on Caribbean farming communities

2021-05-18T14:27:14+01:00May 17th, 2021|

by Alex Stuart, International Project Manager (Agroecology), PAN UK In recent years, there has been an increasing trend of pesticide imports into the Caribbean, with close to 10,000 tonnes imported in 2018 for agricultural use alone. These include highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), which pose a significant risk to human health [...]

People make mistakes – lessons learned from high-risk industries

2021-05-13T09:46:45+01:00May 13th, 2021|

by Keith Tyrell, Director, PAN UK Three decades ago, as a young graduate I embarked on a career in environmental and safety management.  One of my first jobs was working on the safety systems of highly hazardous industries like oil and gas and chemical plants to ensure that the risk [...]

Action needed to phase-out highly hazardous pesticides by 2030

2021-03-19T13:04:43+00:00March 19th, 2021|

by Susan Haffmans, PAN Germany At first glance it might not look like much: PAN International issued two new documents today. Instead of fancy layouts and colourful pictures the documents offer lists, facts and numbers. But those numbers are quite something. They provide transparency and guidance to drive political [...]

Response to Red Tractor’s Standards Consultation

2021-03-11T09:29:08+00:00March 11th, 2021|

Red Tractor is the UK’s largest food standards scheme with roughly 46,000 British members (21% of all UK farmers). It aims to drive up standards in the three areas of food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection. In January, Red Tractor launched a two-month public consultation on proposals to update [...]

Unprecedented support for the UK to drastically reduce pesticide use

2021-03-19T12:01:32+00:00March 5th, 2021|

by Sarah Haynes, Collaboration Coordinator, hosted by PAN UK Over the last few months, PAN UK and RSPB have mobilised 45 organisations and individual farmers and academics to respond collectively to the UK Government’s public consultation on the revised UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides [...]

Organisations unite against neonicotinoids decision

2021-03-19T12:03:46+00:00January 12th, 2021|

Rt Hon George Eustice, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF 12th January 2021 Dear Secretary of State, We are extremely disappointed to hear that the UK Government has decided to grant an emergency derogation allowing sugar beet producers to use seeds [...]

Dramatic rise in global pesticide poisonings revealed

2021-12-10T12:23:56+00:00December 9th, 2020|

In a comprehensive study released today, scientists report that pesticide poisonings on farms around the world have risen dramatically since the last global assessment 30 years ago. Based on an evaluation of available poisoning data from countries all over the world, the researchers conclude that there are about 385 million [...]

UK supermarkets take steps to tackle pesticides

2020-02-24T22:34:13+00:00January 20th, 2020|

But there's still a long way to go... By Hannah Conway, Assistant Campaigner, PAN UK In November 2019, we launched a campaign calling on UK supermarkets to do more to protect human health and the environment from pesticides used in their global supply chains. Our top recommendation to all supermarkets [...]

Agroecology threatens the existence of a toxic pesticide industry

2019-05-07T13:08:00+01:00May 7th, 2019|Tags: , |

by Michel Pimbert, Professor of Agroecology and Food Politics at Coventry University Pesticide companies are caught up in a fierce competition for survival. In the current context of global mergers and restructurings, transnational corporations need to continuously increase their sales of synthetic pesticides in every possible corner of the [...]

Supporting sustainable vegetable farming in Ethiopia

2018-12-10T18:21:43+00:00December 10th, 2018|

Supporting healthy, sustainable and productive smallholder vegetable farming: PAN Ethiopia and PAN UK’s new joint project in the Central Rift Valley Excessive use of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) on vegetable crops grown for the Ethiopian market in the Lake Ziway area threatens the health of farmers and consumers. It also [...]

34 Years after the Bhopal disaster: we still need a highly hazardous pesticide ban

2018-12-03T11:46:04+00:00December 3rd, 2018|

December 3rd 2018, is the 34th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster when a gas tank exploded in a Union Carbide pesticide factory in India, killing thousands of people. To date, half a million people have suffered from health consequences linked to that disaster. Elderly survivors of the ‪Bhopal disaster [...]

A day of reckoning for Roundup

2018-08-13T16:32:21+01:00August 13th, 2018|Tags: , , , , , |

by Keith Tyrell, Director, PAN UK On Friday, 10th August, a jury in California came to a momentous judgement: it agreed with a school groundsman’s claim that his rare form of cancer was caused by exposure to the herbicide known as Roundup. The case has huge implications for glyphosate – the [...]

Latest resources in agroecology

2018-08-09T16:37:16+01:00August 9th, 2018|Tags: , , , , |

by Dr Stephanie Williamson, Staff Scientist, PAN UK (9th August 2018) Agroecological approaches to farming are receiving increasing attention, both at international policy level and in some countries’ national programmes. PAN UK’s Agroecology web section gives readers a brief description of agroecology. It also provides case studies in coffee, pineapples [...]

Recuperation of soil fertility

2018-08-03T13:53:30+01:00August 3rd, 2018|Tags: , , , , |

by Jorge Solano, Technical Dept., Eurofertil S.A., Costa Rica (This post is part of a summary of presentations prepared by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK, from the Coffee without HHPs workshop in Costa Rica, April 2017) Key messages: With increasingly degraded, acidic and eroded soils, biological factors, as well as the usual [...]

Organic inputs for productive coffee in a changing climate (Case Study Honduras)

2018-08-03T13:46:08+01:00August 3rd, 2018|Tags: , , , , |

by Renan Bajurto, Ecological Coffee Cooperative 'La Labor' (COCAFELOL) (This post is part of a summary of presentations prepared by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK, from the Coffee without HHPs workshop in Costa Rica, April 2017) Key messages: Each farm is a different world- it’s important not only to train farmers but [...]

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