UK farmers are becoming increasingly alarmed at the lack of alternatives for protecting their crops as the deadlines approach for implementing the EU Plant Protection Products Regulations that became law on December 14, 2009.
Member States are required to set up National Action Plans to reduce the effects of pesticide use on health and the environment and to promote the use of alternative methods to reduce pressure from pests. These plans are required to include quantitative objectives, targets, measures and timetables, and provide indicators to monitor the use of plant protection products containing active substances of particular concern. The action plans have to be presented to the Commission by December 2012, and will be revised every five years.
In 2009 UK Parliamentary investigations concluded that some 50 active substances that may lose approval. Most of these are approved in the UK. It warned that the bans could lead to significant increases in diseases affecting wheat, oilseed, potatoes and beet.
Farmers warned in 2009 that the ban on the use of key pesticides in European farming was going too far too fast and the situation does not seem to have improved, with the added pressure of cuts expected to the UK farmers' subsidies under reform of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy at the same time as farmers are being asked to produce more and invest more in the future.
Member States have to adopt the Directive's measures and comply with the requirements by 14 December 2011. National Action Plans must be completed by 14 December 2012.The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) carried out a first consultation on the issue, which has now been published and in its summary concludes that the UK's long-standing and rigorous regulatory regime for plant protection products (i.e. agricultural pesticides) and other already existing legal and voluntary controls, means it is in a good position regarding many of the areas covered by the Directive. Recent years have seen a reduction in the range and availability of pesticides, with increasing demands from supermarkets and consumers for no residues in food.
In December 2010 the results of research carried out by Cranfield University study were published. It found that without the deployment of pesticides to control weeds, pests and diseases, crop yields would fall to half their current levels. It said food prices would rise by 40 per cent and that crop protection saves UK consumers £70 billion in annual food costs.
The commission's proposals, it estimated, could remove 5-10% of insecticides, 5-12% of herbicides and 7-35% of fungicides. A range was decided on because of some gray areas about how certain hazard criteria would ultimately be defined.
Using the UK parliament's exclusion criteria, however, it said 66% of UK insecticides would be de-registered, 35-49% of fungicides and 27-33% herbicides. Once the five-year period for approval of candidates for substitution runs out those figures jumped to 92%, 80% and 91%.
There are low-chem alternatives being devised by biopesticides developers but the problem is that the resulting biopesticides, biofungicides and yield enhancers are subject to the same registration processes as conventional pesticides. Developers must file a comprehensive dossier, documenting all risk and safety issues.
It is not a harmonised process. The dossier is evaluated by a 'rapporteur' Member State and then considered by all Member States, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Commission (EC). If the active ingredient meets the specific standards, it is approved and listed in Annex I of the Directive. Plant protection products containing an active ingredient listed in Annex I are then authorised at a national level as long as acceptable use is proven, taking into consideration formulation, climatic and agronomic factors.
It is a cumbersome and lengthy, as well as expensive, process and so far calls to harmonise and speed it all up seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Copyright (c) 2011 Alison Withers
As the deadlines for withdrawal of many current pesticides looms and farmers worry about the effects on their crop yields Ali Withers reports on the lengthy registration process involved in getting new biopesticides approved across the EU.
