Signs of change in EP position on pesticides
It would appear that the arguments put forward by a variety of stakeholders about the economic risks associated with a substantial reduction in the availability of plant protection products are starting to have an impact in the European Parliament. The original Parliament amendment would have banned up to 85 per cent of key products if they met one of the three criteria that defined them as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). A revised proposal would require a substance to meet all three POP criteria before being banned.
The revised position could save as many as 35 active ingredients named by the UK’s Pesticide Safety Direcorate (PSD) as potential substances that would have been removed from use. This included 19 herbicides, including one of the active ingredients in a well-knwon product used for blackgrass control in wheat. The key fungicide chlorothalonil used to cope with septoria, the main yield-robbing disease in wheat, should also remain available. Other fungicides on the PSD list include cyprodinil, used particularly in barley.
There has also been a clarification of part of the report from the lead rapporteur, Hiltrud Breyer MEP, that could allow the renewal of approval for active ingredients identified as candidates for replacement if safer alternatives did not exist. It is argued that the Parliament never intended to adopt a position that would have meant an automatic phase-out of candidates for substitution. Such a phase-out would only be required when a series of conditions was fulfilled.
The PSD study was based on an interpretation that approvals for active ingredients targeted as candidates for replacement could only be made for five years if safer alternatives did not exist. After that, it was thought that products would be removed from the market regardless of whether safer alternatives had been identified. It now appears that approvals could be renewed more than once. If such an amendment was accepted, over 100 pesticides on the PSD list of substances at risk would be safe from withdrawal until safer alternatives existed.
Many insecticides would still be at risk because of a proposal not to approve any insecticide toxic to bees. In general, however, there seems to be a recognition in the Parliament that some ground will have to be conceded if considerable damage to the viability of European farming is to be avoided. This would permit a return to a position closer to the common position of the Commission and the Council of Farm Ministers.
Wyn
The comment in the first paragraph about 85% of products being banned if they were found to be POPs isn’t actually quite correct.
The 85% figure comes from the total package of measures the European Parliament voted through in the first reading, rather than just POPs alone.
A lot of the products that make up the 85% are because PSD thought candidates for substitution wouldn’t be re-approved.
For the full story see: http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/10/23/112777/parliament-climbdown-could-save-key-weedkillers-and-fungicides.html
yes, but the speed with this is to be introduced will be devastating to minor crops in the absense of readily- adoptable viable alternatives, both in terms of practical field solutions and enabling legislation….. isn’t a serious food crisis more of a hazard?
As a lay-person, I am confused. The choice seems to be between carrying on as we are – unsustainably damaging human health and the environment in ways we can’t predict, control or repair – or alternatively cutting down on the damage we do and in the short to medium term adjusting the levels of food we can produce. Thus a choice between unsustainable and unrealistically high (over) production (and over-consumption?) on the one hand, and realistic, sustainable, organic production on the other. Surely a fairly obvious decision?
A serious food crisis is INEVITABLE in either scenario, it seems. In the first scenario it is simply postponed for a while, until all the bees are dead etc. and then it becomes pretty permanent. In the second scenario, it is controlled and managed while alternatives are put in place. Food production, like water-supply and building-land, has natural limits and we have to recognise and work within them … don’t we?
Aspirin, some studies say, can cause cancer. According to the proposed rules, if it was a pestice aspirin should be taken out of the market. But I must take aspirin everyday for my coronary disease, as probably millions of persons have. Now, where is the paradox? In the amount taken. A limited amount per day will protect against stroke; a little more will rid us of headaches. Five hundred fold (!) more will cause cancer in rats. The same with pesticides. There are enough rules to protect the workers that handle them, and also to protect neighbours from accidental exposure. None is foolproof, certainly. Cars also kill, and probably they kill or injure permanently more people than pesticides do, but no one will think of a “zero-automobile” policy. We must ballance the risk (not the hazard!) against the benefits. And trust agronomists and growers: modern production of foodstuffs is thoroughly scrutinised as a condition to be accepted by the main supermarket chains. Strictly organic production is not sustainable: productivity is too low to feed all mouths. Of course we can chose to fill the gap by enlarging the cropped surface (roughly five or sixfold) at the expense of intruding natural landscapes and destroying forests: it is a political choice (the third solution for the equation is out of question: eliminating 4 of each 5 persons in the world). Every technical solution has its cost, and the society must be aware of them when it decides to have less pesticides or more natural landscapes. One cannot keep the cake and eat it…