Final EU pesticides decision could be devastating

The European Parliament has voted today (13 January) to impose severe restrictions on the use of pesticides which are used to produce fruit, vegetable and arable crops on the region’s farms. The vote ends many months of negotiations and lobbying by East Midlands’ farmers and growers and its outcome could have a severe effect on the availability and price of food in future.

Lincolnshire vegetable grower and NFU national horticulture board vice chairman, Sarah Pettitt said today: "Growers will lose some key production tools and their ability to control pests, diseases and weeds will be severely curtailed by the European Parliament’s decisions which have no scientific justification. Growers businesses will suffer as they make the decision whether or not to grow a crop for which they have little or no protection. For consumers, food will become more expensive and healthy eating messages such as the 5-a-day campaign could become unaffordable for many consumers.

"For specialist fruit and vegetable crops, many of which are at the core of our healthy eating messages, such as broccoli, sprouts, salads and fresh fruit, the likely scenario is that many crops could be left in the field, inedible and unharvestable.

"Even though the position finally agreed by the Parliament this week was an improvement on the position many months ago, mainly due to intense lobbying by our industry, the fact is that we will lose an important range of products which have been used safely by farmers and growers for many years.

"It is imperative that the whole industry now looks at how alternatives can be made available to enable growers to continue to produce healthy and nutritious food," added Sarah.

The NFU has been in discussion with MEPs and others for years about the potential impact of the legislation leading to some concessions in areas such as derogations, reduced bureaucracy and emergency authorisations. However the industry must now focus on implementing the regulations in a practical manner in this country. Each EU member state has until 2011 to work on its national action plan.

"Our great concern is that produce grown and processed outside the EU will not be subject to these regulations," added Sarah Pettitt. "If British producers are to remain competitive and continue to produce safe and nutritious food for a growing world population, these regulations must be made to be practical and based on sound science, otherwise we will see the loss of economically important fruit, vegetable and arable crops in this country."