NFU slams pesticide plans

The NFU is stepping up its campaign against EU plans to impose disproportionate, impractical and highly bureaucratic controls on how farmers use crop protection products. The NFU is arguing that the existing legal safeguards, plus the voluntary measures already in place under the Voluntary Initiative (www.voluntaryinitiative.org.uk) provide a more than adequate guarantee that crop sprays will be used safely and responsibly.

NFU Vice-President, Paul Temple said: "The draft Pesticides Directive, particularly as amended by the European Parliament's Environment Committee, would have a serious impact on costs of production and crop yields, without producing any worthwhile benefits in how crop sprays are used.

"Farmers take their responsibility to use plant protection products safely very seriously. We have already voluntarily adopted many of the EU's proposed measures such as operator training, sprayer testing and residential buffer zones. All this has been achieved as part of the Voluntary Initiative and has shown very good results.

"The EU would be much better advised to concentrate its efforts on bringing practice in other parts of Europe up to the high levels that apply in the UK, rather than penalising all farmers - good as well as bad - with yet another piece of impractical and disproportionate regulation.

"These proposals are without any scientific justification. Decisions on how and when to spray should be taken on an individual field basis by farmers based on the existing legal framework and common sense."