EU proposals threaten food
production says BCPC forum
19 June 2008
YIELDS will be decimated, many crops will become uneconomical to produce and food quality will be threatened if new legislation proposed by the EU Commission on changes to the regulation of pesticides becomes law in the near future, according to a recent food chain forum. The proposals, scheduled to be implemented in late 2009, could lead to the removal of 85 per cent of agrochemical products currently approved for use in the UK. In addition, they would create food shortages, soaring food prices and a reliance on imported produce, while the environment would come under threat from changing cropping regimes.These were the key messages coming from a British Crop Production Council Food Chain Forum held in London recently, entitled: ‘The impact of new EU legislation on UK food production, availability and price’. According to James Clarke, science and business development manager ADAS, the lowest impact of the Commission proposals would mean a 25 per cent drop in crop production in the UK – just three to five years following implementation. However, taking the example of the EU Parliament’s more severe proposals, this could result in a minimum 53 per cent drop in overall crop production. Mr Clarke was referring to an independent study conducted by ADAS based on assumptions of agrochemical product loss in the Pesticide Safety Directorate’s (PSD) recently conducted ‘impact assessment’ of the proposals. The study looked at major crops in the UK including wheat, potatoes and brassica
field vegetables. “Disease control would be the major problem on all crops. We would see major disease problems in the potato crop in terms of blight control, while the threat from Septoria in wheat, in addition
to weeds, would be the major drivers in terms of yield loss there.
“We would also lose key actives with which to manage resistance properly. We need full understanding of the impact of the proposals on fresh food quality, continuity of supply and seasonality, throughout the food chain,” he stressed. The Arable Group’s research & technical
director, Jim Orson, raised the concern on how the loss of key pesticides might impact on min-till regimes and the effect that might have on the environment. “Environmentally, min-till is very important to reduce our carbon footprint and the practice will be at risk without the availability of the right herbicides. “We know things have to change, there are issues with conventional agriculture such as leaching and resistance, but to farm in an environmentally-friendly way, and produce enough food, we need the tools to do it.”
Agriculture and Industry News 19 June 2008 Vol 1 No.11