Pesticides legislation: opposing views from the European Parliament
We attended an event in Brussels yesterday entitled “The Importance of Science and Technology to the Future of European Agriculture and Food Production”, organised by the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium.
Part of the event consisted of an expert panel discussion focussing on the following question: “the regulatory and political environment for science and technology’s contribution to European agriculture”. In their introductory remarks, two of the panel speakers, Members of the European Parliamant Hiltrud Breyer (Greens, Germany) and Robert Sturdy(EPP-ED, United Kingdom), gave their views on the pending revision of Directive 91/414 governing pesticides. These may be seen in the videos below.
We shall be uploading more material from the event in the coming days.
Yes, I fully agree with the statement of the industry and the farmers. Why do I concur, and should we all become concerned?
We know from studies conducted in [nearly?] pesticide free “organic” farming that yields are always, but in some crops even considerably, lower than in conventional farming practices in which pesticides are used responsibly. In the case of sugar beet, with manual weeding, the yield of “organic” sugar beets is approx. 50% lower.
In other words, if through legislation, the use of many pesticides will be forbidden, the consequence is lower yields. Combine this with shrinking acreages of arable land in the EU (urbanisation etc.) and we arrive at a scenario that the dependence on imports from non-EU countries will have to grow even further reducing food security in the EU. And I not looking at the additional, very likely major impact of increased imports on food prices in the EU, but this further strengthens my support of the argument of the EU farmers.
Also, if we “want” to prevent food riots, or even wars triggered by food shortages in the developing world with rapily growing populations, the West ought to be in a position to intervene proactively by supplying food from contingency stocks. We can only do this if we make serious efforts to optimize crop production, rather than reduce them.
Before we think any further about legislation restricting pesticide use and thus endangering food security, we need to address the question whether in this day and age “excessive” pesticide use really occurs. Unnecessary purchase and application of pesticides directly impacts the return the farmers gets from his crops. From the numerous discussions I had with modern farmers one sentence sticks in my mind “Just enough, but never too much!”. Okay, so this careful use of pesticides may not be for ideological reasons, but economic ones, but it has the same desired effect.
Dr. Marten Snel
30 September 2008